chapter 3 rethinking the lessons of tokyo jenkins notes that after other high profile incidents...

1 “Some observers believe that the Aum is an aberration and that its Tokyo attack was an isolated incident unlikely tobe repeated. But others believe that the incident illustrates a fundamental change in the proliferation threat: the ease with whichsuch groups can acquire and deploy [weapons of mass destruction] capabilities undetected.” John F. Sopko, “The ChangingProliferation Threat,” Foreign Policy 105 (December 1996): 12.

2 Prepared statement before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 104th Cong., 1st sess., 11 May 1995.

3 First Annual Report to the President and the Congress of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic ResponseCapabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction: I. Assessing the Threat (Washington, DC: 15 December1999), vii. Hereafter referred to as the 1999 Gilmore panel report, so called for its chairman, Virginia Governor James Gilmore.

4 Walter Laqueur, “Postmodern Terrorism,” Foreign Affairs 75, no. 5 (September/October 1996): 34. More recently,Laqueur observed: “The ready availability of weapons of mass destruction has now come to pass, and much of what has beenthought about terrorism, including some of our most basic assumptions, must be reconsidered. The character of terrorism ischanging, any restraints that existed are disappearing, and, above all, the threat to human life has become infinitely greater than itwas in the past.” Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction (Oxford: Oxford Univ.Press, 1999), 7.

Chapter 3

Rethinking the Lessons of Tokyo Amy E. Smithson

Aum Shinrikyo’s attack against the hapless commuters of Tokyo’s subway on 20 March 1995 was viewedby many as a seminal event. While it is not surprising that the actions of this Japanese religious cult

have been the subject of much discussion, those doing the talking have come to disparate conclusions as tojust what Aum Shinrikyo’s activities prove or disprove regarding chemical and biological terrorism.1 Amongthe polar opinions are:

* “I think we’re very fortunate in this country. We haven’t had the kind of attacks they had in Tokyo.And I think it’s just a question of time before someone attempts that sort of thing.”—Senator SamNunn (D–Georgia, ret.)2

* “Terrorists may now feel less constrained to use a [biological, chemical, radiological, or nuclear]device . . . especially following the precedent-setting attack in 1995 by Aum Shinrikyo.”—TheAdvisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of MassDestruction3

* “Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction does not mean that most terrorists are likely to usethem in the foreseeable future, but some almost certainly will.”—terrorist expert Walter Laqueur4

* “No one in the near future is going to see cities destroyed where tens of thousands die. Conventionalexplosives, like those used to create the Nairobi or Oklahoma City atrocities, will continue to inflict

Chapter 3 Rethinking the Lessons of Tokyo72

5 David C. Rapoport, “Terrorism and Weapons of the Apocalypse,” National Security Studies Quarterly V, no. 3(Summer 1999): 49.

6 Jenkins notes that after other high profile incidents (e.g., airline hijackings), other terrorist groups quickly began toduplicate those tactics. Aum’s attack was not duplicated, so, in Jenkins’ view, it stands to reason that the next fad in terrorismwill not involve chemical and biological agents. Brian M. Jenkins, “Understanding the Link Between Motives and Methods” inTerrorism with Chemical and Biological Weapons: Calibrating Risks and Responses, ed. Brad Roberts (Arlington, Va.: TheChemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, 1997), 49, 51.

the overwhelming bulk of the casualties. The plain fact is neither chemical nor biological weaponspresently are truly weapons of mass destruction in the way atomic weapons are; and they arecertainly not so in the hands of terrorists.”—Professor David C. Rapoport5

* “[T]he principal lesson that many take from Aum—that it opens up a new era of massivelydestructive [chemical and biological] attack—is both unfounded and unwise. Constraints may beeroding, but they have not gone away. Contrary to what some assert, it is not just a matter of timebefore we witness an attempt at mass murder using chemical or biological weapons.”—terroristexpert Brian Jenkins6

With this spectrum of opinion, many may wonder what lessons should be drawn from the Aum affair.Spurred by the Aum attack, the US government first tiptoed, then careened into an astounding number ofterrorist preparedness programs, described in chapter 4. The amount of taxpayer dollars being spent makesit expedient to reexamine closely what transpired in Tokyo for the purposes of assessing whether thoseconceiving and implementing these programs gleaned appropriate or just convenient lessons from the Aumsaga and the manner in which Japanese emergency crews responded to the public health and safety crisesthat the sect created.

BEHIND THE FACADE OF AUM

Before the subway attack, Aum Shinrikyo registered with most Japanese citizens as an oddity orperhaps a nuisance, but few perceived them as a menace to society. A people of religious tolerance, theJapanese were accustomed to sects espousing various paths to enlightenment and salvation. The sect’sbusinesses—herbal teas and medications, noodle shops, health clubs, a babysitting service, and variouscomputer-related enterprises—were also within the mainstream. The only ones who knew somethingominous was afoot were the roiled citizens who lived near the cult’s compounds, the families who feared forloved ones who had inexplicably disappeared into the cult’s netherworld, and, belatedly, Japanese lawenforcement authorities who slowly began to connect Aum Shinrikyo to such crimes as kidnaping andmurder.

Aum Shinrikyo was the brainchild of Chizuo Matsumoto, a sight-impaired schoolyard bully whosechildhood dreams were to attend Tokyo University and become the prime minister. His grand plans went

Ataxia: The Chemical and Biological Terrorism Threat and the US Response 73

7 Some of Matsumoto’s grandiose claims can be found in his books, which include The Secret Method for DevelopingSupernatural Powers (1986), The Day of Destruction (1989), From Destruction to Emptiness (1989), and Declaring Myself theChrist, Part I and Part II (1992). The cult’s views about biological weapons are given in Asahara’s latter work, Disaster IsApproaching in the Country of the Rising Sun (1995). More details about Matsumoto’s early years and how the cult began canbe found in D.W. Brackett, Holy Terror: Armageddon in Tokyo (New York: Weatherhill, 1996), 59–78, 95; David E. Kaplan andAndrew Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1996), 7–133. More briefly, the tale istold in Murray Sayle, “Nerve Gas and the Four Noble Truths,” New Yorker, 1 April 1996, 58–9; David E. Kaplan, “AumShinrikyo (1995),” in Toxic Terror: Assessing the Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons, ed. Jonathan B. Tucker(Boston, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000), 286–8.

8 Brackett, Holy Terror, 15–7, 72–4, 86–7, 97–8, 121–4; 144–50; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of theWorld, 36–7, 60–3, 78–9, 81–3, 113–8, 175–81,182–5, 226–7, 257–8; Sayle, “Nerve Gas and the Four Noble Truths,” 60–1, 64.On the cult’s liberal use of drugs, seventeen hundred members were apparently given the hallucinogenic LSD and more than onethousand others a mixture of LSD and amphetamines. Other drugs used for mind control included thiopental, mescaline, andmethamphetamine. Anthony T. Tu, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical and Biological Weapons,” Archives of Toxicology, Kinetics andXenobiotic Metabolism 7, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 48.

awry early though, because he apparently failed the college entrance exam and had to content himself withwork as a masseuse. About this time, he became an avid student of Buddhist writings, joining a religiousgroup that practiced Tantric Buddhism and selling fake medicines. In 1982, he was arrested, convicted,fined, and jailed for selling unregulated medicines, which would pale in comparison to his other activitiesonce he matured as a charlatan. In 1984, Matsumoto started a small publishing house and his own yogaschool, which he gradually reshaped into a cult. Matsumoto renamed himself Shoko Asahara, or “BrightLight,” and to attract followers, fostered the idea that he had supernatural capabilities such as the ability tolevitate. During 1986 and 1987, he traveled to India, ostensibly absorbing the teachings of various religionsand being blessed during the second trip by the Dalai Lama. Matsumoto used a photograph of this encounteras a marketing tool to heighten his Buddhist stature. At the same time, he showed no hesitation about callingupon whatever religions he felt would aid his cause, liberally borrowing from Hindu and Zen philosophies,as well. At one point, Matsumoto said he would “walk the same path as Buddha,” at another he claimed tobe the Christian Messiah.7

Asahara’s hardcore recruits endured great hardships, taking chastity vows, cutting ties with theirpasts, and forfeiting all assets to the cult to live in spartan conditions. Devotees were subjected to endlessbombardment of the master’s wisdom and often deprived of food and sleep. Members paid to rent odd,battery-driven electronic caps that delivered six-volt shocks ostensibly to connect the wearer with Asahara’sbrainwaves. The faithful paid for all manner of potions and notions to achieve elevated levels ofenlightenment, ordination, and entry into Asahara’s inner circle, including $1,000 for the honor of drinkingtheir leader’s bath water and $10,000 for a small vial of Asahara’s blood, also to be drunk. Those whobalked at any aspect of the regimen were driven harder, drugged, and confined. In several instances, the cultresorted to murder to prevent defections.8 Despite this concentration camp-like environment, Asahara’sfaithful soon numbered in the tens of thousands, and its coffers are thought to have contained somewherebetween $300 million to $1 billion. Tax breaks given to religious organizations abetted the cult’s financial


9 The lower estimate of the cult’s wealth can be found in Kevin Sullivan, “Japan Cult Survives While Guru is Jailed:Group Worships Leader on Trial in Gas Attack,” Washington Post, 28 September 1997. The higher figure is cited in Senate StaffStatement, US Congress, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, GlobalProliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 31 October and 1 November 1995 (Washington, DC: US Government PrintingOffice, 1996), 48, 57. Ever with an eye on how to make money, Asahara charged cult members a reported $10,000 per month torent these brain wave helmets. Sayle, “Nerve Gas and the Four Noble Truths,” 59–69. On the protections of Japan’s ReligiousCorporation Law, Brackett, Holy Terror, 52, 176–9.

10 At its zenith, the size of the cult was estimated at forty to sixty thousand, with members in six countries. Testimonyof John F. Sopko, Deputy Chief Counsel to the Minority, accompanied by Alan Edelman, Counsel to the Minority, US Congress,Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Global Proliferation of Weapons ofMass Destruction, 104th Cong., 1st sess., 31 October and 1 November 1995 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office,1996), 16, 26; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 213-4, 289; Brackett, Holy Terror, 91–2.

11 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 15–7, 46–9, 84–5, 222–3, 270; Brackett, Holy Terror, 81-4,95-6, 105; Sayle, “Nerve Gas and the Four Noble Truths,” 62–3; Tu, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical and Biological Weapons,” 46,49.

12 In a 1994 speech in Moscow, one senior Asahara aide spoke of Ebola’s utility as a weapon of war. The cult alsomade a video in 1994 called “Slaughtered Lambs” that it claimed documented poison gas attacks by Japanese and Americanaircraft against cult compounds. Brackett, Holy Terror, 102, 105–6. Also, Sayle, “Nerve gas and the Four Noble Truths,” 68.

circumstances, as did the fact that the labor for its various enterprises was volunteer.9 Before long, AumShinrikyo’s tentacles reached overseas. In Russia alone, the cult had several branches in Moscow and elevenoutside the capital city. Not coincidentally, several of these outposts were collocated with important missile,chemical, and biological weapons facilities. One of Asahara’s greatest preoccupations was the acquisitionof weapons capabilities, and he actively sought materials and knowledge from the experts that powered theformer Soviet weapons programs.10

Asahara’s deliberate and extensive pursuit of an unconventional weapons capability came on theheels of an embarrassing failure to expand the cult’s power and influence through a more acceptable route.In February 1990, Aum Shinrikyo offered the Japanese electorate a slate of twenty-five candidates, includingthe guru himself, on the parliamentary ballot. The electoral defeat of the cult’s Truth Party was total andhumiliating. Voters rejected Aum’s candidates in part because of the doomsday tone of Asahara’s stumpspeeches. Disgraced and angered by having received only 1,783 votes for the entire lot of Aum candidates,Asahara began predicting two months later that a disaster would befall Japan. Buttressed by Shiva, the multi-armed Hindu goddess of destruction and rebirth that was the cult’s chief deity, Asahara veered down a pathto subvert the Japanese government and usurp power. Stirring in apocalyptic theories from other sources,Asahara’s vision drew upon the biblical concept of Armageddon, the Buddhist notion of anarchy followingthe abandonment of Buddha’s wisdom, and the end-of-the-world revelations of Nostradamus. He orderedthe cult to arm itself for a cataclysmic battle, after which he assured his followers that they would be thesuper race.11 Asahara and a few chosen disciples also began to make accusations that the cult was beingattacked with poison gas and, conversely, publicly touting the virtues of sarin and Ebola.12


13 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 87–8, 102, 213–4, 216.

14 Sheryl WuDunn, Judith Miller, and William J. Broad, “Sowing Death: How Japan Germ Terror Alerted the World,”New York Times, 26 May 1998.

15 The Japanese newspaper Chunichi Shinbun reported on 25 April 1995 that roughly eight people were helping Endocultivate pathogens. According to another source, about a dozen people worked in Aum’s biological program. See MiltonLeitenberg, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Efforts to Produce Biological Weapons: A Case Study in the Serial Propagation ofMisinformation,” in Terrorism and Political Violence 11, no. 4 (1999): 156, fn. 24. Endo, who was the cult’s busy youngMinister of Health and Welfare, studied molecular biology and genetic engineering from a research post at the Viral ResearchCenter at Kyoto University. English sources often accredit Endo with having a PhD in molecular biology, but according to a 27April 1995 report in the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shinbun, Endo did not complete the requirements for this degree. Clarification of this matter and of the Chunichi Shinbun’s report on the size of Aum’s biological warfare program provided in apersonal communication with the author from Mr. Maasaki Sugishima of the Asahi University School of Law (4 September2000). Murai, who held the title of Minister of Science and Technology, took graduate-level courses in astrophysics at OsakaUniversity. Before joining Aum, he worked in the research and development department of Kobe Steel, Ltd. See also, StaffStatement, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 63; Kaplan and Marshall, Cult at the End of the World, 51–3,Kaplan, “Aum Shinrikyo (1995),” 293; Sopko, “The Changing Proliferation Threat,” 13–4.

16 Staff Statement, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 63; Kaplan and Marshall, Cult at the End ofthe World, 51–3, Kaplan, “Aum Shinrikyo (1995),” 293; Sopko, “The Changing Proliferation Threat,” 13–4. Perhaps the earliestpublic description of the cult’s laboratory equipment appeared in the 15 April 1995 edition of the Yomiuri Shinbun. Personalcommunication from Mr. Maasaki Sugishima (4 September 2000).

At Asahara’s behest, a premium was placed on recruiting scientists and technicians to aid the cult’sarmament programs, which were impressive in their scope, if not always in their execution. The ClearStream Temple housed the sect’s high-technology weapons division, located some twenty miles from MountFuji at Aum’s Kamikuishiki headquarters. In 1993, the cult opened a huge factory there with metal workingmachines, lathes, and other equipment suitable for fashioning weapons or the machinery needed to makeweapons. Aum spent liberally, buying a $400,000 green-light laser, a $500,000 lens grinder, and computersand parts that cost millions.13 The cult set its sights on futuristic armaments, like lasers and seismologicalweapons, but it also sought to harness one of the oldest weapons of all, disease.

AUM’S TECHNICALLY INEPT BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS PROGRAM

While the cult’s chemical weapons capability made worldwide news in the immediate aftermath ofthe Tokyo subway attack, Aum’s quest for a biological weapons capability actually predated its chemicalprogram. Seichi Endo, a graduate-trained molecular biologist with a background in genetic engineering, ledan Aum party to the island of Hokkaido in March 1990 to obtain a seed culture of Clostridium botulinum.14

Endo and Hideo Murai, a graduate-level physicist, were in charge of the sect’s biological team, whichnumbered about ten.15 Under their direction and the pretense of manufacturing herbal teas and medicines,the cult’s front companies procured the equipment and other materials needed for a biowarfare program. Thecult bought laboratory equipment in bulk quantities, freeze dryers, incubators, liquid nitrogen containers,grinders, fermenters, and appreciable amounts of growth media. Endo also saw to it that the cult’s scientificlibrary held the appropriate volumes and articles on how to produce various biological agents.16


17 The Kamikuishiki facility also had freeze dryers. Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 51–2; KyleB. Olson, “Overview: Recent Incident and Responder Implications,” in Proceedings of the Seminar of Responding to theConsequences of Chemical and Biological Terrorism, Office of Emergency Preparedness (Washington, DC: US Public HealthService, Department of Health and Human Services, 11–14 July 1995), page 2-42.

18 Testimony of Alan Edelman, US Congress, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommitteeon Investigations, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 31 October and 1 November 1995 (Washington, DC:US Government Printing Office, 1996), 33; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 51–2.

19 According to the 28 March 1995 edition of the Asahi Shinbun and the April 3rd and 4th editions of the YomiuriShinbun, police seized two hundred barrels of peptone at Kamikuishiki and additional peptone at the Mount Aso facility. Also,prosecutor’s statement, 25 April 1996 documents of Asahara’s trial in Tokyo District Court, translation provided by Mr. MaasakiSugishima (1 September 2000). Other sources give the figure of 160 barrels of peptone, WuDunn, Miller, and Broad, “SowingDeath”; Staff Statement, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 63, 151; Kaplan, “Aum Shinrikyo (1995),”293–4.

The cult’s compound at Kamikuishiki was home to one of several Aum facilities involved inbiological weapons research and production. The Kamikuishiki laboratory had all of the microscopes andglassware that one might expect. As shown in figure 3.1, collocated with the laboratory were fermentationand concentration tanks, along with a capability to heat dry liquid agent into solid cakes and subsequentlygrind it into powder form. Another biological laboratory was located at Aum’s Mount Aso camp, in centralKyushu.17 Those working in Aum’s biowarfare facilities observed some biosafety practices, for some workwas performed in clean rooms.18 At a more advanced production facility that the cult was building in a four-story structure at their Naganohara compound, high-efficiency particulate air filters and containment featureshad been installed, along with electron microscopes, and advanced incubators. Murai planned to producelarge amounts of botulinum toxin at this facility, which never opened. The scale of Murai’s plans wasrevealed by the two hundred barrels of the growth medium peptone discovered stashed at the Mount Fujicompound. A class of university science students would consume about one liter of peptone a year for itsresearch, but these drums contained about eighteen liters of peptone apiece.19

After their trip to Hokkaido, Aum scouted several biological agents. The cult sought informationon the toxin of the green mamba snake, worked with poisonous mushroom spores, and was attempting tofabricate horse sera to make botulinum toxin. According to erroneous reports, the cult was also conductingresearch with Q fever, an agent that Asahara claimed had been sprayed on hundreds of his followers. Aumreportedly brought a Q fever culture back from a ranch the cult had purchased in Australia. The sect had achicken egg production capacity in waiting to enable the growth of this microbe. Asahara himself led a forty-member cult medical team to Zaire in 1992, a trip billed as an “African Salvation Tour” to aid the victimsof an Ebola outbreak. Reports circulated that the real purpose of the mission was to secure a seed culture


20 The horse serum work took place at Mount Aso. Asahara even directed his followers to build a stable. StaffStatement, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 62–4, 93; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of theWorld, 96, 233. On Aum’s work with Q fever, Karl Lowe, “Analyzing Technical Constraints on Bio-Terrorism: Are They StillImportant?” in Terrorism with Chemical and Biological Weapons: Calibrating Risks and Responses, ed. Brad Roberts(Arlington, Va.: Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, 1997), 59; WuDunn, Miller, and Broad, “Sowing Death.” Theoriginal reports of Aum’s acquisition of Q fever and work with horse serum appeared, respectively, on 22 November 1995 in theMainichi Shinbun and on 27 May 1995 in the Yomiuri Shinbun. Personal communication from Mr. Maasaki Sugishima (4September 2000).

21 Eliot Marshall, “Bracing for a Biological Nightmare,” Science 275, no. 5301 (22 October 1997): 745. See also,Barbara Starr, “DARPA Begins Research to Counteract Biological Pathogens,” Jane’s Defense Weekly 28, no. 15 (15 October1997): 8. Starr quotes two Defense Advanced Research Project Agency officials to the effect that Aum was able to insert an e-coli agent inside botulinum toxin.

22 See the previous footnote for context. The function of the design software in Marshall’s Science article was to modelorganic chemical reactions. The two officials in Starr’s Jane’s Defense Weekly article state that they made no remarks about thecult having established a genetic engineering capability, but Starr’s account was reported worldwide more than once andreprinted in an important British medical text. Leitenberg, “The Widespread Distortion of Information,” 6–7. Japaneseprosecutors have made no mention in court of Aum successfully cultivating Q fever. Personal communication from Mr. MaasakiSugishima (4 September 2000).

Nitrogen Tanks

Incubators

Freeze Drier

Heat DrierGrinder

GuineaPigs

Shower/Air Lock

Air Filters

Figure 3.1: Diagram of Aum Shinrikyo’s Alleged Biological Weapons Lab at Kamikuishiki (1990)

Source: Kyle B. Olson, “Overview: Recent Incident and Responder Implications,” in Proceedings of the Seminar of Responding to the Consequences of Chemical and Biological Terrorism, Office of Emergency Preparedness (Washington, DC: US Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services, 11–14 July 1995), page 2-88.

of the deadly virus. During aDecember 1994 radio broadcast,Endo spoke of Ebola’s potentiala s a b i o l o g i c a lwarfare agent.20 Other mediareports overplayed the cult’sforays into genetic engineering,one built upon the sect’spurchase of molecular designsoftware.21

Years later and withcareful investigation, it hasbecome clear that Aum’sprowess with these biowarfareagents has been significantlyexaggerated. Aum did not have any equipment capable of growing the Ebola virus, which it apparently neverpossessed. Moreover, the sect never obtained Q fever either. All the cult had were test kits to diagnose Qfever. Absent seed cultures for these agents, the cult could hardly have succeeded in producing them, muchless in genetically modifying these or other agents.22

From the outset, Aum’s biological program was rife with technical bunglings that the cult’s germcorps failed to recognize or was willing to ignore. Determined to move out smartly, they tried to leap froma seed culture to disseminating an agent in record time. In April 1990, just a month after the trip to Hokkaido


23 According to some reports, the cult dispersed what it thought was botulinum toxin in Tokyo on another occasion,targeting the Imperial Palace during the June 9th 1993 the wedding of Crown Prince Naruhito and Princess Masako. WuDunn,Miller, and Broad, “Sowing Death”; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 58–9, 93–6, 234–6. Japaneseprosecutors have not mentioned this attack in court. Prosecutor’s statement, 25 April 1996 documents of Asahara’s trial inTokyo District Court, translation provided by Mr. Maasaki Sugishima (1 September 2000). The truck is described in Olson,“Overview: Recent Incident and Responder Implications,” page 2-42.

24 Testimony of Kyle B. Olson, US Congress, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommitteeon Investigations, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 31 October and 1 November 1995 (Washington, DC:US Government Printing Office, 1996), 111; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 97. A similar account wasgiven in a cult member’s confession printed in the 14 April 1995 edition of the Yomiuri Shinbun. Endo was also attempting tocultivate C. botulinum at the Kamikuishiki compound laboratory, where his failed experiments with rats took place. Excerpt ofthis story provided by Mr. Masaaki Sugishima (1 September 2000).

25 Prosecutor’s statement, 25 April 1996 documents of Asahara’s trial in Tokyo District Court. Translation provided byMr. Maasaki Sugishima (1 September 2000). For the assertion that Aum produced botulinum toxin, attributed to what Japaneseauthorities believed in 1995, see Staff Statement, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 62. Stating that the cultdid not have a lethal strain, WuDunn, Miller, and Broad, “Sowing Death”; Leitenberg, “The Widespread Distortion ofInformation,” 2; 1999 Gilmore panel report, 50–1. Another explanation given for the failure of the sect’s botulinum attack(s) isthat insufficient quantities were disseminated to kill anyone. W. Seth Carus, Bioterrorism and Biocrimes: The Illicit Use ofBiological Agents in the 20th Century, Working Paper (Washington, DC: National Defense University, July 1999), 57.

26 On the acquisition of a veterinary vaccine strain instead, remarks of Mr. Maasaki Sugishima. Presentation at theAssociation of Politics and the Life Sciences Conference, 1 September 2000, Washington, DC. Some reports said Aum may havegotten this vaccine strain from Tsukuba University, but officials there deny any cooperation with the cult. WuDunn, Miller, andBroad, “Sowing Death.” Also, 1999 Gilmore panel report, 50–1. Reporting the early assessment of Japanese authorities, see StaffStatement, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 62.

27 Prosecutor’s statement, 25 April 1996 documents of Asahara’s trial in Tokyo District Court. Translation provided byMr. Maasaki Sugishima (1 September 2000).

to probe the soil of the Tokachi River for Clostridium botulinum strain, Asahara wanted whatever emergedfrom the fermenter dispersed among his countrymen. A three-vehicle dissemination convoy snaked aroundTokyo, the international airport at Narita, and the US naval bases at Yokohama and Yokosuka. One of thevehicles was a large truck with a compressor system and six hidden vents.23 The sect’s members may havethought they were pumping out botulinum toxin, but no passersby were infected. Actually, these would-begerm warriors should have had some idea that no harm would come to pass because none of the test rats atKamikuishiki that they had exposed to their toxin had died.24 Aum has been publicly credited with thesuccessful production of botulinum toxin, but evidently the cult’s physician, Tomomasa Nakagawa, wasunable to isolate Clostridium botulinum strain from the Tokachi River soil.25 In other words, Aum’s effortto produce botulinum toxin never really got off the ground.

Aum’s biological team also tried their luck with anthrax, an agent that Japanese authorities initiallythought the cult succeeded in producing. Aum believed that its followers had obtained a virulent strain ofanthrax in 1992, but what they really had was the veterinary vaccine strain.26 Perhaps unaware that this strainwas nonlethal, Endo nonetheless set about cultivating it at in a hermetically sealed laboratory inside the sect’sheadquarters building in Kameido, the Koto ward of Tokyo.27 In June and July 1993, the cult twice tried toaerosolize an anthrax slurry from the roof of this eight-story building, where an industrial sprayer with a large


28 In July 1995, several erroneous Japanese media stories based on information supplied by the police appeared.Leitenberg, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Efforts to Produce Biological Weapons,” 152, fn. 6. Also on this attempted attack, WuDunn,Miller, and Broad, “Sowing Death”; Staff Statement, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 63; Kaplan andMarshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 94–6. Some accounts said that birds were killed, and pets were sickened; but whilesome people lost their appetites, no one died.

29 Leitenberg, “The Widespread Distortion of Information,” 3–4.

30 Cult member Fumihiro Joyu claimed that they knew this device, which Murai worked on, would kill themicroorganisms. Asahara was told of this problem, but authorized the spraying, described in the interview as a religious exerciseto simulate Armageddon. Manabu Miyazaki, “Kameido Anthrax Incident: An Interview with Fumihiro Joyu,” Aum Katai(Tokyo: Rai-inn Shuppan: 2000), 144–8. Japanese prosecutors state that the device, called “water-mach” was developed by cultmembers Kazumi Watanabe and Toru Toyoda. Prosecutor’s statement, 25 April 1996 documents of Asahara’s trial in TokyoDistrict Court. Translation provided by Mr. Maasaki Sugishima (1 September 2000).

31 Leitenberg, “The Widespread Distortion of Information,” 3–4. Japanese prosecutors also attribute the failure of theattack to the high pressure of the dissemination killing the B. anthracis. Prosecutor’s statement, 25 April 1996 documents ofAsahara’s trial in Tokyo District Court. Translation provided by Mr. Maasaki Sugishima (1 September 2000). Problems withdisseminating a liquid slurry are discussed in chapter 2.

32 Asahara was apparently in one of three vehicles that circled the Japanese Diet and another Tokyo landmark, theTokyo Tower. Trial testimony of cult member Shigeo Sugimoto as reported in 19 March 1997 edition of Asahi Shinbun. Excerptprovided by Mr. Masaaki Sugishima (1 September 2000); WuDunn, Miller, and Broad, “Sowing Death.”

33 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 57.

fan was reportedly situated. According to widely repeated accounts based on the police report of the Juneincident, over a four-day period moon-suited cult members poured anthrax into a steam generator and thenthrough the sprayer and fan.28 Read more closely, however, the police report indicates that steam was risingfrom the building, and no industrial capacity sprayer was involved in the incidents.29 In an interview, a cultmember later stated that a pump was employed to try to generate a high pressure aerosol.30 The police reportalso notes that those living near Aum’s headquarters smelled something malodorous, not specifically thatthe cult was spreading anthrax for four entire days. The whole foul-smelling episode was inflated. Asignificant quantity of agent would have been required to release a slurry continuously for four hours, muchless four days. Whatever Aum’s concoction may have been, it was not deadly anthrax and it could not haveposed much of an inhalational threat because people in the area at the time saw clots of jellyfish-like materialin the street, a sign of clogging problems during the spraying of a slurry.31 Aum failed in two other attemptsto disperse its anthrax potion in July 1993, when the vented, compressor-pump truck was again sent throughthe heart of Tokyo.32

Aum’s attempts and plans to disseminate germ mixtures on additional occasions shed more light onthe scope of the cult’s biowarfare program and perhaps its folly. In April 1990, Endo reportedly tried to usesome type of homemade spraying device to blanket the Diet with a neurotoxin, a fizzled endeavor thatresulted in no casualties.33 That same month, Asahara told the faithful that he planned to use balloon bombs


34 This account was given in court by cult member Shigeo Sugimoto and reported in the 19 March 1997 edition of theAsahi Shinbun. Asahara may have gotten this idea from Japan’s World War II era biological warfare program, which hadresearched the possibility of agent dispersal via balloons. Excerpt of this report provided by Mr. Masaaki Sugishima (1September 2000. The old Japanese program is described in Sheldon H. Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare1932–45 and the American Cover-up (New York: Routledge, 1994).

35 Staff Statement, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 63; Olson, “Overview: Recent Incident andResponder Implications,” page 2-42.

36 A bomb capability was reported in Marshall, “Bracing for a Biological Nightmare,” 745. For a convincing rebuttal ofthis assertion. Leitenberg, “The Widespread Distortion of Information,” 5.

37 WuDunn, Miller, and Broad, “Sowing Death”; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 235–6; StaffStatement, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 63; Olson, “Overview: Recent Incidents and ResponderImplications,” pages 2-37, 2-59.

38 Kaplan, “Aum Shinrikyo (1995),” 286; WuDunn, Miller, and Broad, “Sowing Death.” Note that whether the intentof Aum’s biological attacks was to kill indiscriminately has been questioned, since some of the cult members assert that theyknew harmless substances were being dispersed. Personal communication from Mr. Masaaki Sugishima (4 September 2000).

39 WuDunn, Miller, and Broad, “Sowing Death”; Leitenberg, “The Widespread Distortion of Information,” 2; 1999Gilmore panel report, 50–1.

to disseminate botulinum toxin across Japan, a plot that never came to fruition.34 The sect had also procureda Russian helicopter that they intended to equip with a spray device, as well as two remote control droneswith spray attachments.35 According to one media report, Aum was also ascribed with building a crudeanthrax bomb, a claim later refuted.36 The cult did, however, assemble three briefcases with side vents,battery-powered fans, and vinyl tubes to hold biological agent. On 15 March 1995, these attaches were placedin the Kasumigaseki subway station, just five days prior to Aum’s sarin attack. The vibration of passingtrains was supposed to trip ultrasonic triggers to set off the devices. Authorities found the briefcases, butwere unable to retrieve any samples from the small vials inside for analysis.37 The contents were probablyone the cult’s toothless microbe mixtures.

Over the space of five years, the cult carried out at least nine biological attacks with what it hopedwould be lethal consequences.38 Japanese experts and cult members have reported that the group’s technicalincompetence was such that Aum could not get out of the starting block, much less all the way to thesuccessful dissemination of biowarfare agents.39 Thus, despite the cult’s investment of considerable moneyand time and the participation of graduate-level scientists in the effort, Aum’s efforts to isolate, produce, andspread biological agents were, from start to finish, a serial flop.

AUM’S CHEMICAL WEAPONS PROGRAM

Aum Shinrikyo’s novice weaponeers encountered more success with poison gas, as one might expect.There, the cult spared no expense as well, spending an estimated $30 million on its own capacity to develop,


40 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 87–8, 102, 213–4, 216.

41 Prepared Statement of Connie J. Fenchel, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 229.

42 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 107–8.

43 Tsuchiya stated that one of the reasons he signed on with the cult was that Aum’s laboratories were better than thoseat Tsukuba University. Sayle, “Nerve Gas and the Four Noble Truths,” 70. Also, “Staff Statement,” Global Proliferation ofWeapons of Mass Destruction, 61; Brackett, Holy Terror, 114–5. Tsuchiya has been described as a “brilliant” chemist. Tu,“Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical and Biological Weapons,” 48.

44 The two front companies were Bell Epoch and Hasegawa Chemicals, located in Shizuoka and Tokyo, respectively. Japanese law enforcement authorities seized chemicals in raids at several Aum compounds on 22 March 1995. Anthony T. Tu,“Basic Information on Nerve Gas and the Use of Sarin by Aum Shinrikyo,” Journal of the Mass Spectrometry Society of Japan44, no. 3 (1996): 311. Public sources differ on the amount of chemicals the cult had. See also, Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult atthe End of the World, 98, 257.

test, produce, and disseminate sarin and other chemical warfare agents.40 Before trying to create an in-houseproduction capability, the sect first attempted to acquire chemical weapons from countries known to possessthem. In 1988, an Aum operative wired a firm that supposedly peddled American weapons but was reallya front company for the US Customs Service. A cult member placed an order for five hundred MK94 bombsand MK116 “weteye” bombs apiece. Had filled munitions been delivered, the cult would have been inpossession of over 250 tons of sarin, theoretically more than 1.25 billion lethal doses.41 Aum also attemptedto gain chemical munitions, expertise, and recruits from the scientists that built Russia’s chemical arsenal,declared at 40,000 metric tons.42

Unable to buy chemical weapons, Aum initiated its own poison gas program in the spring of 1993.This program was headed by Aum’s lead chemist, Masami Tsuchiya, a doctoral candidate specializing inphotochemistry at Tsukuba University. The aforementioned Endo and Murai also played supervisory roles.43

Through two chemical front companies, the cult began a spending binge to amass the requisite chemicalingredients. Aum purchased in quantity and variety from over two hundred Japanese chemical supplycompanies. Among the more than two hundred chemicals packed into its warehouses were 60 tons ofglycerol, 50 tons of phosphorous trichloride, 10 tons of sodium fluoride, 1.5 tons of nitric acid, 1.2 tons ofcalcium chloride. Other chemicals checked off the shopping list included dimethylamino ethanol,dimethylmethylphosphonate, hydrogen fluoride, methyliodide, potassium iodide, thiodiglycol, and sodiumcyanide.44

Stocked with ingredients, Aum’s scientists busied themselves in the cult’s laboratories, exploringand producing chemical agents. Tsuchiya synthesized the nerve agent VX in his private laboratory on fouroccasions at the cult’s new production facility. In addition, cult chemists reportedly knew their way aroundtabun, soman, mustard, hydrogen cyanide, and phosgene. Apparently, the cult did not produce these agentsin sizable quantities. For example, the cult manufactured a pound of mustard. From one Aum member,


45 Tsuchiya confessed to having made VX, which the cult wielded as a tool in at least three assassination attemptsagainst its opponents, killing one. Tu, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical and Biological Weapons,” 75, 79. See also, Pamela Zurer,“Japanese Cult Used VX to Slay Member,” Chemical & Engineering News (31 August 1998): 7. Aum attempted to use hydrogencyanide in two foiled terrorist attacks. Under ideal dissemination conditions, this quantity of sodium cyanide could kill well overfifty thousand people. Kaplan, “Aum Shinrikyo (1995),” 293; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 150, 211;Staff Statement and Testimony of John F. Sopko, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 21–2, 61–2, 87–8;Brackett, Holy Terror, 110, 113–4, 118, 146, 157, 175.

46 The quantity of sarin made in October 1993 was 20 grams; 1 kilogram in November 1993; 5 kilograms in December1993; and 20 kilograms at the Satyan 7 facility from February to March 1994. The last of these batches was used in the late June1994 attack in Matsumoto. Tu, “Basic Information on Nerve Gas,” 309; Anthony T. Tu, “Chemistry and Toxicology of NerveGas Incidents in Japan in 1994 and 1995,” Paper presented at the Third Congress of Toxicology in Developing Countries, 1September 1996, Cairo. Also, Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 131, 140.

47 Each of the laboratories contained sophisticated equipment, such as $10,000 infrared spectrometers to separate andanalyze chemical compounds. The facility was so advanced that it had a fluorine treatment capacity, a feature that numerousWestern laboratories bypass because of its expense. The individual who reportedly sold Aum the blueprints for the plant was thesecretary of the Russian Security Council, Oleg Lobov. Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 119–20, 216,259. Kaplan, “Aum Shinrikyo (1995),” 293–5. See also, Olson, “Overview: Recent Incident and Responder Implications,” page2-42. On Takizawa as the chief designer of Satyan 7, Tu, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical and Biological Weapons,” 48, 79.

48 Brackett, Holy Terror, 115.

police seized seventeen bottles of sodium cyanide, a total quantity of 8.5 kilograms.45 Instead, the cultfocused its poison gas program on sarin.

Aum’s chemical team produced their first batch of the agent that made the cult infamous in the fallof 1993, when they synthesized 20 grams of sarin in a pre-built structure called the Krishitigalva Prefab.46

Before long, the cult’s sarin aspirations outpaced their production capacity. Asahara deemed the laboratory-scale capability at Kamikuishiki inadequate and ordered a new production facility built. Aum Shinrikyoreportedly paid a Russian official approximately $100,000 for the blueprints for this plant, but a 27-year-oldcult member by the name of Kazuyoshi Takizawa has also been credited with being the facility’s chiefdesigner. The sarin plant, known as Satyan 7, was erected at a cost of $10 million on the Mount Fujicompound. The entrance of Satyan 7 was a shrine that disguised the facility’s real purpose. Above a hugestyrofoam statue of the head of Shiva was the “Room of Genesis,” chocked with tanks holding nerve gasprecursor chemicals. Behind Shiva was a two-story distillation column. Further into the building were threelaboratories, a computer control center, and the fabrication area with its five reactors, injectors, piping,wiring, and heating. The equipment was corrosion-resistant Hastelloy, well-suited for making chemicalwarfare agents. The fifth reactor in this suite was state-of-the-art—a $200,000 Swiss-built, fullycomputerized model with automatic temperature and injection controls plus analytical and record keepingfeatures. The product from this reactor was piped to an industrial packaging machine that deposited thespecified amount of liquid into nylon polyethelene bags, which were then heat-sealed.47 Next door to Satyan7 was a laboratory that alone cost an estimated $1 million to build, filled with hundreds of thousands ofdollars of analytical equipment.48


49 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 120, 150, 259. Aum Shinrikyo also had a Russian-madeGSP–11 toxic gas detector at Kamikuishiki, but it is not known whether this detector was used at Satyan 7. Prepared Statement ofGordon C. Oehler, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 216.

50 Olson, “Overview: Recent Incident and Responder Implications,” page 2-42.

51 Testimony of John F. Sopko, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 21; Kaplan and Marshall, TheCult at the End of the World, 120–1, 149. One source put the total staffing level at three hundred, Brackett, Holy Terror, 116.Another source states that eighty scientists were engaged in manufacturing sarin and other chemical agents, Tu, “AumShinrikyo’s Chemical and Biological Weapons,” 50.

52 The target of this attack was Daisaku Ikeda, the leader of the Soka Gakkai Buddhist organization. Tu, “ Chemistryand Toxicology of Nerve Gas Incidents in Japan in 1994 and 1995,” 84; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World,131–3. Another version of this attack describes only one attempt, during which the dispersal system caught fire. Brackett, HolyTerror, 29. On the backwards spraying in the first attempt, personal communication from Dr. Anthony Tu (6 October 2000).

Satyan 7 had some built-in safety features, such as hatchways that sealed off rooms in the event ofaccidents, ventilation, and a decontamination chamber. Technicians wore gas masks and full-body chemicalsuits during certain operations, such as sampling. Closed-circuit television recorded activities in theproduction area.49 Yet, buckets were placed around the plant to catch leaks, an indication in the words ofone analyst that “the cult had a high degree of book learning but virtually nothing in the way of technicalskill.”50 Nonetheless, Asahara decreed ambitious production goals for Satyan 7. The sect’s chief scientist,Murai, projected that the plant would manufacture 70 tons of the nerve agent within forty days of startingoperation. The daily target was 2 tons, with the yield of each batch set at 17.6 pints of sarin. As Satyan 7came on line in 1993, Asahara ordered the number of those working in Aum’s hi-tech division—the SupremeTruth Research Institute of Science and Technology—increased from eighteen scientists, engineers, andtechnicians to over one hundred.51

Under a certain amount of pressure because the cult’s biological concoctions were not achieving thedesired results, Aum’s chemical corps took steps to prove that its sarin would indeed kill. Partly to incitea war in Japan that might give rise to his predicted apocalypse and partly to test the sarin’s toxicity, Asaharaordered an attack on the leader of a rival religious sect. On two successive evenings in the spring of 1994,the cult twice sprayed sarin from a mechanism affixed to a van. On the first attempt, the sprayer completelymalfunctioned and sprayed backwards, and on the second the cult’s security chief, Tomomitsu Niimi, wasexposed to sarin. Quick administration of nerve agent antidotes saved his life.52 Further tests on live subjectswould take place at a ranch that the sect purchased in September 1993 in the Australian outback calledBanjawarn Station. A field testing facility of sorts, the ranch had a laboratory that was fully outfitted withcomputers, various types of digital equipment, and standard items such as bunsen burners, glass evaporators,and ceramic grinding and mixing bowls. On hand as well were noteworthy quantities of assorted acids andtoxic chemicals. When Australian police later investigated the homestead, they found the remains of twenty-nine sheep. Authorities also came across a Japanese language document indicating that the sheep might havemet their fate as a result of experiments, a possibility turned probability when tests on the wool and soil


53 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 127–9, 133; The Australian Investigation of the AumShinrikyo Sect, Staff Statement, and Testimony of Alan Edelman, in Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 32,75, 613. The cult apparently intended to mine uranium ore, a base material for nuclear weapons, from this site. Brackett, HolyTerror, 93–4, 114.


55 Citizen complaints were filed on July 7th and 15th 1994. The accident occurred on November 16th. Gaschromatograph-mass spectrometry analysis found methylphosphonic acid, a degradation byproduct of sarin manufacture.Anthony T. Tu, “Overview of Sarin Terrorist Incidents in Japan in 1994 and 1995,” Proceedings from the 6th CBW ProtectionSymposium (Stockholm: 10–15 May 1995), 14–5. Also, Brackett, Holy Terror, 116–7. On the challenges of operating aproduction facility safely and briefly on Aum’s numerous accidents, Richard A. Falkenrath, Robert D. Newman, and Bradley A.Thayer, America’s Achilles’ Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack (Cambridge, Mass.: MITPress, 1998), 24.

56 Tu, “Chemistry and Toxicology of Nerve Gas Incidents in Japan in 1994 and 1995,” 86, 95.

57 Hugo Gurdon, “Seven Die as Poison Gas Engulfs Flats,” The Daily Telegraph, 29 June 1994; “Screams, SirensSignaled Tragedy,” The Daily Yomiuri, 29 June 1994.

samples revealed trace residues of sarin.53 By gassing the sheep, the cult had obtained unmistakable proofof their sarin’s lethality.

Aside from the accident with Niimi, other shortcomings of Aum’s safety procedures were soonevident. Inside Satyan 7, several laboratory technicians inhaled fumes on repeated occasions and exhibitedsymptoms ranging from nosebleeds to convulsions.54 Production problems also became apparent when toxicchemicals began to leak from the site. Citizens living nearby lodged numerous complaints with the policein July 1994 of noxious fumes coming from the Kamikuishiki compound. Aum Shinrikyo denied anywrongdoing, stating instead that US forces had assaulted the cult with poison gas. In November 1994, anaccident forced the suspension of agent production operations. Police took soil samples from just outsidethe compound and found concrete evidence of sarin production at a time when police knew that the verysame chemical agent had been used in a June 1994 attack in Matsumoto, described below. Japanese policehad this sample evidence four months before the Tokyo subway gas attack. Police could not prosecute Aumat that time, however, because no law prohibited the manufacture of poison gas. Until their case against thecult was airtight, Japanese law enforcement authorities would not make any arrests.55 Police sat on theevidence that the cult was manufacturing sarin, but on 1 January 1995 the Yomiuri Shinbun, a leadingnewspaper, published the story, alerting Asahara and his lieutenants that the police had finally begun tosuspect them of serious foul play.56

DEADLY DRESS REHEARSAL AT MATSUMOTO57

On June 27th 1994, a rented minivan and an ordinary looking refrigerated delivery truck departed theAum compound for the mountain city of Matsumoto, taking the back roads instead of expressways, wherecameras record license plates. Inside the truck, a group of six men contemplated their assignment from


58 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 138–9; Sopko, “The Changing Proliferation Threat,” 13. Theoriginal attack plan called for the cult to spray sarin into the courthouse where the judges worked in broad daylight. Brackett,Holy Terror, 27–8.

59 The spraying device used at Matsumoto was developed by a 37-year-old mechanical engineer, Kazumi Watanabe.Tu, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical and Biological Weapons,”48. On the events leading up to the attack, Kaplan and Marshall, TheCult at the End of the World, 137–41, 144; Brackett, Holy Terror, 32–4.

60 Near the Fuji River estuary, the cult conducted a live-agent test with the fan delivery system, which was powered bythirty batteries weighing 1,000 pounds. The container of sarin was secured with bolts to the truck’s load platform. The antidotethat was administered was probably atropine. Only one of the jurists was hospitalized, along with his wife. All three judges weretoo ill to work for a while, so the ruling was postponed. Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 137–41, 144;Brackett, Holy Terror, 32–4.

61 Japanese prosecutors estimated the amount of sarin released. Testimony of John F. Sopko, Global Proliferation ofWeapons of Mass Destruction, 21. Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 144.

62 Tu, “Basic Information on Nerve Gas,” 309–10. According to another source, the sarin used in this attack was madeten days beforehand in a Satyan 7 laboratory. Brackett, Holy Terror, 29.

Asahara concerning three district court judges hearing a civil suit that had been filed challenging the legalityof Aum’s purchase of a piece of land. To preempt an anticipated unfavorable ruling, their mission was togas the three judges and whomever else happened to be unfortunate enough to be around at the time.58

En route to Matsumoto, the assassination team stopped to alter the license plates and purchaseuniforms as disguises. By the time the slow convoy reached the ancient city, the judges had left thecourthouse for their homes, so the cult members improvised and headed for a residential area in the northernpart of town. The truck, customized to disperse poison gas, pulled into a supermarket parking lot around10:00pm.59 With those in the minivan serving as the lookouts, the team of assassins in the truck began theirfinal preparations. A doctor administered a sarin antidote to the truck’s occupants. The assassins thendonned improvised gas masks hardly deserving of the name—inflated plastic bags with oxygen feedtubes—before repositioning the two vehicles in a parking area closer to the dormitory where the judges lived.There, around 10:40pm, the team opened a window in the side of the truck, turned on a heater, a fan, and acomputer system, and cranked open a valve that released a slow drip of liquid sarin onto a heater. Eventhough the cult had previously conducted a live-agent test with the fan delivery system, this operation didnot go smoothly. A white mist filled the truck, the result of too much isopropyl alcohol having been put intothe sarin. After several moments of panic inside the truck, the fan began to blow the toxic vapor out thewindow, where the cultists left the wind to take care of the rest. The spraying continued for roughly twentyminutes. Fortunately for the judges, the wind did not cooperate and all three jurists survived.60 Beforedeparting the area, Aum’s assassination team dispersed about 20 kilograms of sarin.61 The agent had beensynthesized from February to March 1994 in the Kushiti Galva Prefab at the Kamikuishiki compound.62

The gas wafted over an elliptical area measuring 800 by 570 meters, affecting most intensely thosein a smaller 400 by 300 meter region. The evening was warm, so seven unwary residents in the area made


63 The next morning, dead fish and crayfish were found in a pond near the incident site. From samples taken from thispond, inside the victims’ homes, and other locations, and within two weeks authorities positively identified sarin using gaschromatography, mass spectroscopy, chemical ionization, and other methods. Traces of sarin, phosphoric acid, and di-isopropylwere also found in the dead victims. For more on the patients’ symptoms and treatment, see Dr. Nobu Yanagisawa, “Matsumoto,Japan (June 1994),” in Proceedings of the Seminar on Responding to the Consequences of Chemical and Biological Terrorism,pages 2-13–18, 2-20; Hiroshi Okudera et al., “Unexpected Nerve Gas Exposure in the City of Matsumoto: Report of RescueActivity in the First Sarin Gas Terrorism,” American Journal of Emergency Medicine 15, no. 5 (September 1997): 528. Notethat the casualty figures in these accounts differ slightly, and a survey later revealed that another 277 people experiencedsymptoms of sarin exposure but did not seek medical assistance. The seven who died were located in three buildings in closeproximity to the parking lot where the sarin was released. Brackett, Holy Terror, 37.

64 Gwen Robinson, “Japanese Weedkiller Cocktail Kills Seven,” The Times, 29 June 1994. For a detailed accounting ofthe development, and subsequent retraction, of the allegations by the police and the media against Kono, see Teresa Watanabe,“Japan’s Media: How Watchful an Eye? Investigations into Nerve Gas Attacks Create a Dilemma for the Passive Press,” LosAngeles Times, 2 June 1995. Also, Brackett, Holy Terror, 37–43; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 144–6.

65 Tu, “Basic Information on Nerve Gas,” 308–9.

66 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 144–6.

the fatal mistake of going to bed with their windows open. Those who came down with a runny nose, cough,and shortness of breath, followed by dim and blurred vision may have thought a cold was oncoming, but theywere suffering the first symptoms of sarin exposure. The death toll probably would have been higher hadwindows not been closed elsewhere in the community. The first emergency call was made at 11:09pm, andbefore long just under one hundred white-gloved police, firefighters from five departments in municipalitiesnear Matsumoto, and emergency medical personnel rushed to the stricken neighborhood. Within an hour,the chief fire officer at the scene declared a mass disaster caused by an unknown toxic gas. Those injuredwere sent to six hospitals, where physicians proceeded somewhat cautiously. The doctors could treat onlywhat they were observing—clinical symptoms consistent with severe organophosphate poisoning. Only laterwould laboratory analyses reveal the culprit to be sarin. Hospitals admitted fifty-eight people, seven ofwhom lost their lives, and an additional 253 sought medical care at outpatient clinics.63

Matsumoto police initially suspected that a local man, Yoshiyuki Kono, formerly a salesman for achemical company, was responsible for the incident. Kono was the first of many who had called for helpthat night, but after police found nineteen chemicals in his home and traces of sarin in his fish pond, theydeclared that his attempts to make an herbicide for his garden had gone grossly awry.64 The NationalResearch Institute of Police Science, which had analyzed the samples, subsequently predicted that anothersarin release would take place.65 In September 1994, an eleven-page epistle on the Matsumoto sarin attackwas sent to Japan’s major media outlets, signed only with several initials. The document asserted that AumShinrikyo was responsible for the attack because sarin could not be manufactured from the chemicals inKono’s private stash. A second anonymous letter claimed that Matsumoto was an open-air “experiment ofsorts” and noted that the results would be much worse if sarin were released indoors, for example in a“crowded subway.”66 Asahara and his followers made television appearances to blame the tragedy on US


67 Sayle, “Nerve Gas and the Four Noble Truths,” 68.

68 The lyrics of “Song of Sarin, the Brave” went as follows:In the peaceful night of Matsumoto CityPeople can be killed, even with our own hands,The place is full of dead bodies all over,There! Inhale Sarin, Sarin,Prepare Sarin! Prepare Sarin!Immediately poisonous gas weapons will fill the place. Spray! Spray! Sarin, the Brave, Sarin.

Excerpt from Aum Shinrikyo’s manual on sarin manufacture, dated 20 December 1994, as quoted in Staff Statement,Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 60–1. The manual included chemical processes and other songsglorifying sarin. Cult members apparently had pet names for the sarin, such as Magic, Witch, and Sally. They tagged Satyan 7the Wizard. Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 121.

69 Brackett, Holy Terror, 121–4. On rush training of the police, Olson, “Overview: Recent Incidents and ResponderImplications,” page 2-38.

70 Brackett’s account has Murai, at Asahara’s behest, chairing this meeting in his room at 3:00pm on the 18th; Kaplanand Marshall’s has Asahara overseeing the planning at 11:30pm on the 17th at an Aum-operated restaurant in Tokyo; Tu’saccount has Asahara leading an initial meeting in his Rolls Royce returning from the aforementioned dinner, followed by asecond planning meeting in Murai’s office at 3:00pm on the 18th. Brackett, Holy Terror, 126–7; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cultat the End of the World, 237–8; Tu, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical and Biological Weapons,” 55, 57. The cult’s goal has beendescribed as to “kill as many policemen as possible.” Kyle B. Olson, “Aum Shinrikyo: Once and Future Threat?” EmergingInfectious Diseases 5, no. 4 (July/August 1999): 516; Olson, “Overview: Recent Incident and Responder Implications,” page 2-38; Tu, “Overview of Sarin Terrorist Incidents in Japan in 1994 and 1995,” 15.

Navy pilots, who they said had bombed Matsumoto with poison gas.67 As the media and law enforcementauthorities puzzled over who was behind these letters and the deadly toxic assault, someone in the cultcrafted a little ditty to immortalize the Matsumoto attack, one of several songs meant to inspire the workersin Aum’s poison gas factory at Kamikuishiki.68

ANATOMY OF THE MARCH 20TH ATTACK

At long last, police finally got the legal pretext they needed to raid the Kamikuishiki compound whenthey found fingerprint evidence that an Aum member was linked to a suspected kidnaping. Aware that AumShinrikyo was making poison gas inside, the National Police Agency ordered gas masks and protective gearfor three hundred officers from the Self Defense Forces. They also sent five hundred police officers quicklythrough last-minute chemical training at the Self Defense Forces Chemical School at Omiya. Two cultmembers inside the Self Defense Forces passed word to Asahara that a crackdown was coming on March22nd.69 To dissuade Tokyo police from raiding Aum’s facilities, Asahara and his key lieutenants hastily threwtogether the subway sarin attack plan over the weekend. The cult nevertheless pinned down the operationaldetails methodically. At 3:00pm on March 18th, a hand-picked group of attackers gathered to select whichsubway lines to accost. The plotters wanted a sarin-armed cult member on trains going in both directionson the Hibiya, Marunouchi, and Chiyoda lines, which would intersect shortly after 8:00am at Kasumigasekistation, the subway stop nearest police headquarters. This timing was chosen because the trains would befilled with police arriving for the 8:30am shift change.70


71 Chemicals were destroyed or hidden in various places because early in January 1995, aware that the police wereclosing in on them, Asahara ordered Tsuchiya to disassemble Satyan 7, which was then turned into a worship hall. Media wereinvited to tour the facility in February 1995 to dispel concerns about the cult. Endo reportedly informed Asahara that the agentwas diluted, but Asahara insisted the attack go forward on Monday morning, as planned. Brackett, Holy Terror, 39, 117–8, 125;Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 242–3. On adding isopropyl alcohol drop by drop and the use ofhomemade oxygen masks during the sarin manufacture, Tu, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical and Biological Weapons,” 55.

72 The nylon-polyethylene bags, which the cult manufactured, measured 50 by 70 centimeters. Kaplan and Marshall,The Cult at the End of the World, 236, 239–43; Olson, “Overview: Recent Incident and Responder Implications,” page 2-40;Staff Statement, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 61; Tu, “Overview of Sarin Terrorist Incidents inJapan,”15, 18.

73 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 242; Brackett, Holy Terror, 127–8.

74 Brackett, Holy Terror, 126, 128–9; Tu, “Overview of Sarin Terrorist Incidents in Japan,”15.

75 The antidote pill was pyridostigmine bromide. In case of an accident, the attackers were given syringes of atropineand pyridine-2-aldoxime-methylchloride, which counteract the effects of nerve agents. Tu, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical andBiological Weapons,” 58; Brackett, Holy Terror, 129; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 243.

76 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 241–2; Tu, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical and BiologicalWeapons,” 55.

That same day, a key chemical, difluoromethylphosphonate, that had been hidden at theKamikuishiki compound was retrieved so that Endo could make a batch of sarin under chief chemistTsuchiya’s supervision. Murai, who is said to have ordered Tsuchiya to dilute future batches of sarin afterthe Matsumoto attack, was also personally involved in the synthesis of roughly 2 gallons of sarin on the nightof March 18th. The sarin was made painstakingly, with one chemical added drop by drop. Still, the groupknew that their product contained a large number of impurities because it had been made in such a rush.71

After synthesizing the agent in an older building known as the Jivaka Prefab, four top cult members movedthe over to Satyan 7 for the next phase of the operation. There, they poured some 20 ounces of sarin apieceinto eleven plastic bags that sat in a second, larger plastic liner. The attackers were instructed to mask thebags with newspapers.72

On March 19th, the assault team gathered at an Aum-owned condominium in Tokyo to review theirassignments, setting out at 10:00pm for a final reconnaissance mission in the subway to pin down thefrequency of train arrivals and departures, the length of time that subway doors remained open during stops,and which train cars would put the attackers closest to station exits.73 The designated attackers returned toKamikuishiki at 3:00am for some last-minute drilling. Using umbrellas that had had their tips sharpenedspecifically for the mission, the assault team practiced puncturing water-filled bags.74 Before they left thecompound, the sarin bagmen were issued antidote pills to take two hours prior to the attack, as well as asyringe of another fast-acting antidote in case they got trapped aboard their train after piercing their bags.75

Late on the night of March 19th, a second Aum assault team firebombed the sect’s Tokyo headquarters, doinglittle damage but hoping to mislead Tokyo police with scattered leaflets that threatened Asahara andattributed to the bombing to another cult.76


77 The most detailed account of the attack can be found in Brackett, Holy Terror, 132–4. On the exact timing of thesarin releases on the five subway trains, Tu, “Overview of Sarin Terrorist Incidents in Japan in 1994 and 1995,” 16. Also,Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 244–6.

78 Brackett, Holy Terror, 134–40.

79 On the lack of a smell, Dr. Fred Sidell, “US Medical Team Briefing,” in Proceedings of the Seminar on Respondingto the Consequences of Chemical and Biological Terrorism, pages 2-31–2.

The assault team had little time to rest by the time they got back to the condominium in Tokyo.Between 6:00 and 6:30am, five assault teams—one subway rider paired with a getaway driver—left thecondominium so that the attackers could board their assigned trains at the designated times. Among theMonday morning commuters moving through the subway stations were five Aum members, one toting threesarin-filled packages and the other four, two apiece. As diagramed in figure 3.2, between 7:46am and8:01am, the attackers stabbed the plastic liners with the umbrellas and stepped off their trains several stationsaway from Kasumigaseki. Outside, the assailants met their getaway drivers.77 Meanwhile, the trainscontinued toward the city center, and the packages that had been left sitting on the floor began to seep sarinvapor and liquid agent. Of the eleven bags, eight were ruptured and three were recovered intact. Police laterestimated that a total of 159 ounces of sarin were released on the five subway trains hit.78

Some commuters did not notice a smell before the fumes began to choke them, others describedodors like burning rubber or mustard, as well a clear, gooey substance on the floor.79 Figure 3.2 shows wheretrains halted their runs. On the Marunouchi line, going in the direction of Ikebukuro, the train reached theend of its run and was returning to the city center before passengers asked subway officials to remove foul-smelling objects from the train. The effects of the sarin were much more pronounced on the other four lines,as passengers began coughing, collapsing, vomiting, and convulsing within a few stops from where the sarinhad been released. In more than one station, attendants were also confronted with unconscious passengersin trains or on station platforms. Before long, subway operators would shut down all three subway lines and

Naka Meguro

7:59am: Toru Toyoda boards first car of northbound Hibiya train; places sarin bags at feet.

Ebisu8:01am: Toyoda stabs bags as train pulls into station; exits train.

8:11am: Passengers exit car convulsing, coughing, vomiting;

several unconscious in car. Station personnel call medical aid, move stricken passengers to other cars; people in station

start feeling ill.8:16am: 7 minutes behind

schedule, train departs.

Kamiyama-cho

Kasumigaseki

8:20am: More sickened passengers stumble from train, collapse on platform. Train managers halt train run, evacuate other passengers. Police estimate 40 ounces of sarin released from Toyoda's 2 bags.

Ueno

Akihabara

7:46am: Yasuo Hayashi boards southbound Hibiya line train.

8am: Hayashi stabs 3 bags at his feet, exits train; punctures only 2.

Kodenma-cho8:02am: Passengers sickened by gas; passenger kicks bags off car to platform, liquid residue continues to gasify. Train continues.

Kayaba-choPeople collapse on platform; station attendants don't connect illnesses to car, train again proceeds.

Tsukiji Before train reaches Tsukiji, passengers hit emergency button; at station, 5 unconscious people fall from train, three others found inside; countless sick on platform. Station officials evacuate train, suspend run.8:41am: All trains on Hibiya line suspended. Estimate 50 ounces of sarin released. 2 bags punctured by Hayashi, 1 stepped on by commuters.

Sendagi

Shin Ochanomizu

Around 7:00am: Ikuo Hayashi boards Chiyoda line train; rides to outer station, returns toward Kasumigaseki to attack within Aum's timetable.

7:48am: Hayashi stabs his 2 sarin bags; only punctures 1.

Hibiya8:07am: Coughing passengers complain, notify subway officials about smells and strange liquid in car.

8:12am: Sarin spread through car via foot traffic; 2 station officials fatally exposed trying to clean up unknown substance.Police estimate 20 ounces of sarin released on Chiyoda Line.

Ikebukuro

Ochanomizu

Awaji-cho

Shinjuku

Yotsuya

7:47am: Kenichi Hirose boards Marunouchi line train.

7:59am: Hirose punctures bags, exits train.

In one stop, passengers complain about foul smell. Station personnel find several sickened passengers unable to move in car and summon ambulances. Station personnel remove bags from train with newspaper.

Police estimate 2 bags spilled 30 ounces of sarin, which gasified in train and stations.

7:39am: Masato Yokoyama boards Marunouchi line train.

8:01am: Yokoyama stabs 2 bags, punctures 1, exits train.

Hongo San-

Chome

Ikebukuro

Train attacked by Yokoyama travels to turnaround station, Ikebukuro, where passengers complain of foul odor.

Station personnel use brooms, rags, and newspapers to remove bags; train put back into service. Train continues to run until 9:27am .19 ounces of sarin released, 20-ounce bag recovered in tact.

Figure 3.2: Schematic of Aum Shinrikyo's 20 March 1995 Attack*

Source: D.W. Brackett , Holy Terror: Armageddon in Tokyo (NY: Weatherhill, Inc., 1996), 130--41.

*Shading denotes stops along the same subway lines in the five different attacks. Due to space constraints, intermediate stops on the lines are sometimes excluded.


80 Brackett, Holy Terror, 136–42. According to one survey, 31.7 percent of the commuters experienced the onset ofexposure symptoms while on the subway train, 43.3 percent while on the subway platform, 15.2 percent in the area of the stationbut not on the platform, and 9.7 percent in areas outside of the subway station. Some victims apparently left the scene before theonset of exposure symptoms. Y. Ogawa et al., “An Attack with Sarin Nerve Gas on the Tokyo Subway System and Its Effects onVictims,” in Natural and Selected Synthetic Toxins: Biological Implications, ed. Anthony T. Tu and W. Gaffield (London:Oxford University Press, 2000), 333–55.

81 Interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician (28 October 1999). On the Hibiya line, 2,475 were injured and sevendead on the line to Megro, and 532 harmed and one dead on the line to East Zoo Park. On the Marunouchi line to Ogikubo, 358were injured and one died, and on the line headed to Ikebukuro, two hundred were hurt but none died. On the Chiyo line, therewere two deaths and 231 injuries. Tu, “Overview of Sarin Terrorist Incidents in Japan in 1994 and 1995,” 16.

82 Tetsu Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Disaster Management, Part 1: Community EmergencyResponse,” Academic Emergency Medicine 5, no. 6 (June 1998): 614–5. Also on the number of subway stations affected, CentralIntelligence Agency, The Chemical and Biological Weapons Threat (Washington, DC: Nonproliferation Center, March 1996), 7;Olson, “Overview: Recent Incident and Responder Implications,” page 2-38.


84 Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 247. Note that video and photographs of the incident showmany rescuers without masks.

twenty-six stations as well.80 The most injuries occurred on the Hibiya line, with the heaviest count atTsukiji station, followed by Kayabacho and Kodenmacho stations.81

TOKYO’S RESCUE AGENCIES AND HOSPITALS RESPOND TO THE AUM ATTACK

The Tokyo fire department received its first emergency call within minutes of the sarin release, at8:09am. Before long, the switchboard registered similar calls from multiple subway stations. Although callsfor aid came from fifteen subway stations in under an hour, authorities did not understand that the unfoldingemergency had a single cause. In March 1995, Tokyo’s emergency medical response corps consisted of1,650 Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) staffing 182 teams. As the crisis mounted, authoritiesdispatched 131 ambulances and 1,364 EMTs to the downtown subway stations on the Hibiya, Marunouchi,and Chiyoda lines. EMTs, police, and fire personnel were clad in routine work clothing, which in the caseof the police and EMTs did not include gear to protect them against toxic substances (e.g., respirators).82

Roughly forty minutes into the response, orders would go out from the National Police Agency that anyrescuers going into the subway system had to wear gas masks.83

Rescue crews found pandemonium, with scores of commuters stumbling about, vision-impaired, andstruggling to breathe. Casualties littered the sidewalks and subway station exits, some foaming at the mouth,some vomiting, and others prone and convulsing. Adding to the chaos, television helicopters hovered noisilyoverhead to broadcast the scene.84 Inside subway stations and near the exits, EMTs began to triage victims


85 Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 1,” 614–5; Sidell, “US Medical Team Briefing,” page 2-33.

86 Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 1,” 615. Similarly, rescuers in Matsumoto did notdecontaminate victims in June 1994. Okudera et al., “Unexpected Nerve Gas Exposure in the City of Matsumoto,” 528.

87 Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 1,” 615.

88 Tetsu Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Disaster Management, Part 2: Hospital Response,”Academic Emergency Medicine 5, no. 6 (June 1998): 619. Tsukiji subway station, which is very close to St. Luke’s, had themost casualties, followed by Kayabacho and Kodenmacho stations. Interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo (29October 1999).

89 Interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo (30 October 1999).

90 Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack, Part 2,” 619.

and offer medical assistance, although they administered no remedial drugs and did not intubate serious casesat the scene.85 Nor did they decontaminate the victims.86

The EMTs loaded the most seriously affected patients into ambulances and departed for hospitals.With so many rescue vehicles activated, regular communications channels were clogged. Ambulance crewswere unable to get through to the ambulance dispatch center to determine which hospitals could receivepatients, so some stopped at pay telephones to try to secure instructions directly from hospitals. As the scaleof the emergency became apparent, the Tokyo fire department summoned back-up personnel. Heeding thiscall, forty-seven doctors and twenty-three nurses reported to the scene to find that the most severe casesalready en route to hospitals. Inside the ambulances, some cases at first evaluated as mild worsened duringthe ride. In addition, some of the EMTs pulled into ambulance bays beginning to exhibit symptoms similarto those they were trying to help.87

At St. Luke’s International Hospital, which is located within three kilometers of five of the affectedsubway stations, doctors were notified at 8:16am of a disaster, described as a gas explosion. They began toprepare for patients with burns and carbon monoxide poisoning. Twelve minutes later, the first victimsarrived on foot at the emergency department. At 8:40am, the first of many ambulances pulled into St. Luke’semergency department,88 as noted in the incident chronology in box 3.1. Since the patients did not have theexpected injuries, doctors asked the EMTs for information. The ambulance crews did not know what hadoccurred, but they thought perhaps that tear gas had been released. The doctors had received word of deathsat the scene, however—an outcome that tear gas would not have caused.89

Approximately five hundred patients inundated St. Luke’s from roughly 8:40 to 9:40am.90 Thecasualties surfaced not just at the emergency department, but at St. Luke’s other two entrances as well.Hospital administrators put the facility on an emergency footing, canceling routine surgeries and outpatient


Box 3.1: Timeline of Events Associated with the Tokyo Subway Attack7:46am to 8:01am: Members of Aum Shinrikyo release a diluted form of the nerve agent sarin on theMarunouchi, Chiyoda, and Hibiya subway lines.8:09am: The Tokyo fire department receives the first emergency call. Within an hour, emergency callsare coming from fifteen subway stations. Authorities did recognize that all of these calls resulted froma single cause.8:16am: The fire department calls St. Luke’s International Hospital Emergency Department, reportingas a gas explosion. The hospital prepares to receive patients with burn and carbon monoxide poisoning.8:28am: On foot, the first three patients arrive on foot at St. Luke’s, followed in a few moments byabout twenty additional victims, all complaining of mild exposure symptoms (e.g., eye pain, milddyspnea, lacrimation).8:40am: The first ambulance arrives at St. Luke’s at the same time that the hospital is warned that itwill probably receive several more hundred patients in the near future. Three minutes later, a privatevehicle brings in a victim in cardiac arrest. In the next hour, about five hundred patients flood the threeentrances of St. Luke’s.8:44am: The National Police Agency opens an emergency operations unit to coordinate fire, police, andemergency medical system rescue units.8:50am: The first patient observed at the Opthamology Department has very pinpointed pupils, so theSt. Luke’s staff suspects organophosphate poisoning. Incoming patients are put on intravenous lines. Also, the National Police Agency, suspecting a chemical agent is the cause of the subway chaos, asksthe Self Defense Agency to send two chemical warfare experts to assist the emergency operations unitand soon thereafter orders all police and rescuers going into the subway stations to wear gas masks.8:55am: At St. Luke’s, a stat call is issued for all available medical staffers report to the emergencydepartment.9:00am: Police begin to block access to the affected subway stations, collect and analyze samples andother items at the scene. Television crews start broadcasting live reports of the unfolding disaster.9:12am: News of Tokyo subway commuters sickened by a mysterious gas hits the international newswire, courtesy of British Reuters news agency. 9:20am: Hospital administrators at St. Luke’s declare an emergency, canceling routine operations andoutpatient services. The decision is taken to convert non-medical spaces (e.g., halls, chapel) to patientholding and treatment areas.9:30am: St. Luke’s receives a telephone call from Dr. Nobu Yanagisawa of Shinshu UniversityHospital, one of the physicians who treated the victims of Aum’s June 1994 sarin attack in Matsumoto. Yanagisawa, who has seen the television reports, tells St. Luke’s he believes that sarin may again be thecausative agent.9:40am: The Tokyo fire department, equipped with gas infrared analyzers but lacking nerve agents intheir analytical database, initially identifies the chemical substance as acetonitrile. St. Luke’s staff haveobserved symptoms (e.g., myosis) and have blood test results that contradict this information, so they donot act upon it.9:45am: The Ministry of Transport and Transportation orders all transportation systems within thecountry put on the highest level of alert.10:00am: One doctor and three nurses arrive from the Japanese Self Defense Forces Hospital to provideSt. Luke’s staff with treatment advice and assist with care of victims. They indicate with a 99 percentprobability that sarin was the causative agent, so critical patients are started on intravenous 2-pyridinealdoxime methiodide. (continued, next page)


Box 3.1: Timeline (continued)10:10am: Self Defense Forces units at the Chemical School at Omiya are put on alert and dispatcheddowntown to assist with chemical detection, sample collection, and decontamination. 10:30am: St. Luke’s holds a press conference about the emergency and provides the first handout tomedical staff about the causative agent, symptoms, and treatment.11:00am: St. Luke’s learns from television news that police using a gas chromatograph-massspectrometer have identified the agent as sarin. The police did not directly call hospitals with thisinformation. A facsimile arrives from Shinshu University Hospital with data about sarin poisoning andtreatment.11:30am: A second, more detailed treatment protocol is distributed to the St. Luke’s medical staff, andpatients are given a simplified history questionnaire as well as an instructional handout.12:00noon: Doctors at St. Luke’s standardize triage and treatment for the victims.12:50pm: A two-person sample collection team from the Omiya Chemical School completes its workat the Kodenmacho station, and the samples travel under police chain of custody back to the laboratory at Omiya for analysis. 2:00pm: St. Luke’s sends home 528 patients who have recovered from eye irritation symptoms.3:07pm: Four chemical agent detection specialists from the Omiya Chemical School arrive, oneapiece, in succession at the Tsukiji, Hibiya, Kodenmacho, and Kasumigaseki subway stations. Between 4:20pm and 2:30am on the 21st, they employ sensors to detect the presence of chemicalagent.4:50 to 9:20pm: Soldiers from the decontamination units at the Omiya Chemical School arrive atseveral subway stations to decontaminate the stations and subway trains.8:00pm: St. Luke’s obtains final reconfirmation of the list of patients who were admitted.12:00midnight: Tokyo fire department obtains a final listing of how many patients have been admittedto which hospitals.

Sources: Note that some sources have military chemical units arriving earlier on the scene, accounts that contradict theinternal Self Defense Force memorandum cited in this chronology. Tetsu Okumura, Kouichiro Suzuki, et al., “The TokyoSubway Sarin Attack: Disaster Management, Part 1: Community Emergency Response,” Academic Emergency Medicine 5,no. 6 (June 1998): 614–5; Tetsu Okumura, Kouichiro Suzuki, et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Disaster Management,Part 2: Hospital Response,” Academic Emergency Medicine 5, no. 6 (June 1998): 619, 620, 622; Tetsu Okumura, KouichiroSuzuki, et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Disaster Management, Part 3,” Academic Emergency Medicine 5, no. 6(June 1998): 626. David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World (New York: Crown Publishers,Inc., 1996), 251; Dr. Tatsuo Yamaguchi, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,” in Proceedings of the Seminar of Responding tothe Consequences of Chemical and Biological Terrorism, Office of Emergency Preparedness (Washington, DC: US PublicHealth Service, Department of Health and Human Services, 11–14 July 1995), page 2–27; Dr. Sadayoshi Obu, “JapaneseMedical Team Briefing,” in Proceedings of the Seminar of Responding to the Consequences of Chemical and BiologicalTerrorism, Office of Emergency Preparedness (Washington, DC: US Public Health Service, Department of Health andHuman Services, 11–14 July 1995), page 2-22; Yukio Matsui, Sadayoshi Obu, Akira Yamashina, “Hospital Deployment inMass Sarin Poisoning Incident of the Tokyo Subway System: An Experience at St. Luke’s International Hospital, Tokyo,”Japan Hospitals, no. 15 (July 1996): 68–9; Sadayoshi Obu, “Sarin Poisoning in the Tokyo Subway,” briefing slides (Tokyo:St. Luke’s International Hospital, n.d.); D.W. Brackett, Holy Terror: Armageddon in Tokyo (New York: Weatherhill, 1996);2–5; “Report of the Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces: Chronology of Activities,” Internal Memorandum (Tokyo:Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces, n.d.).


91 Ibid., 620.

92 Dr. Sadayoshi Obu, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,” in Proceedings of the Seminar of Responding to theConsequences of Chemical and Biological Terrorism, page 2-23.

93 Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 2,” 620; Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack:Part 1,” 615.

94 Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 1,” 615; Obu, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,” 2–22. AtSt. Luke’s, sixty-four arrived by ambulance, thirty-five by mini-van, and the remainder by taxi, private vehicle, or on foot. Dr.Sadayoshi Obu, “Sarin Poisoning in the Tokyo Subway,” briefing slides (Tokyo: St. Luke’s International Hospital, n.d.).

95 Of the 5,510 casualties who reported to medical facilities, over 4,470 showed no visceral symptoms of nerve agentexposure. Similarly, one-third of the World War I soldiers who claimed to have been gassed had not in fact been exposed towarfare agents. Chemical warfare came of age during that war, with one-third of the battlefield munitions containing choking,blood, or blister agents. One-third of all of the casualties were indeed caused by poison gas. Sidell, “US Medical TeamBriefing,” pages 2-32–33. Another study puts the number of worried well in Tokyo at 73.9 percent. See James W. Stokes andLouis W. Banderet, “Psychological Aspects of Chemical Defense and Warfare,” Military Psychology 9, no. 4: 405–6.

96 Mild cases were experiencing eye problems alone, moderate cases were nonambulatory and exhibited othersymptoms, and severe cases were nonambulatory and on mechanical ventilation. Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway SarinAttack: Part 2,” 620. According to another source, there were five severe cases and a total of 641 patients. Dr. Sadayoshi Obu etal., “Sarin Poisoning on Tokyo Subway,” Southern Medical Journal 90, no. 6 (June 1997): 588–90.

appointments.91 All of the hospital’s personnel were pressed into service to treat patients, includingpsychiatrists, pathologists, and urologists.92 St. Luke’s staff conducted triage at all three hospital entrances.In the press of the disaster, ambulances delivered some casualties without triage tags.93

Before the day was over, ambulances transported 688 patients, which means that well over fourthousand people reached hospitals by alternate means—on foot and via taxi and private vehicles.94 AlthoughSt. Luke’s bore the brunt of the disaster, 278 Tokyo hospitals and clinics saw 5,510 patients, seventeen ofwhom were deemed critical, thirty-seven severe, and 984 moderately ill. The cases classified as moderatecomplained only of vision problems (e.g., myosis). Among the deluge of patients were numerous individualsexhibiting some of the same symptoms as those who had been gassed. Roughly 85 percent of those reportingto hospitals in the aftermath of the sarin attack were psychogenic patients, also called the worried well.95

These psychogenic patients had no real chemical injuries, but they nonetheless clamored for medicalattention. Thus, doctors and nurses faced the multiple challenges of distinguishing truly injured from worriedwell, diagnosing what was causing the mass illness, and deciding upon the appropriate treatment. At St.Luke’s, the staff separated incoming patients into 528 mild, 107 moderate, and four severe cases. Asappropriate, victims were given intravenous fluids and oxygen. Severe cases were taken to the intensive careunit, moderate cases were admitted to wards, and mild cases were observed.96


97 Tetsu Okumura et al., “Report on 640 Victims of the Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack,” Annals of Emergency Medicine28, no. 2 (August 1996): 130. The number of patients is given elsewhere as 641, including five pregnant women and thirteenchildren. Yukio Matsui, Sadayoshi Obu, and Akira Yamashina, “Hospital Deployment in Mass Sarin Poisoning Incident of theTokyo Subway System: An Experience at St. Luke’s International Hospital, Tokyo,” Japan Hospitals, no. 15 (July 1996): 69.

98 Their revised approach was essentially a stiff medical chart sheet with a neck strap and serial numbers. Okumura etal., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 2,” 620–1, 623; Obu, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,” 2-21–22.

99 Interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo (27 October 1999).

100 Tatsuo Yamaguchi, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,” in Proceedings of the Seminar of Responding to theConsequences of Chemical and Biological Terrorism, page 2-27. Initially, rescuers and doctors suspected that the illness inMatsumoto was caused by food poisoning, contaminated water, or gas. Residents complained of nausea, poor vision, headache,and low-grade fever. Doctors were unable to determine via medical examination that sarin was causing the victims’ illness, butcould diagnose very strong organophosphate poisoning before sample analysis revealed the presence of sarin. Yanagisawa,“Matsumoto, Japan (June 1994),” page 2-20; Okudera et al., “Unexpected Nerve Gas Exposure in the City of Matsumoto,” 528.

101 The military physician from the Self Defense Forces quickly observed the patients, contacted his supervisors, andthen told the St. Luke’s staff that sarin was the causative agent. The headquarters then faxed information about sarin and care ofthose exposed to it. Particularly useful was data on what questions to ask the patients to help determine the severity of theirexposure. Interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo (27 October 1999). This military assistance arrived so quickly thatphysicians at St. Luke’s surmised that the Self Defense Forces were on heightened alert about a possible attack. Interviews withauthor: St. Luke’s Physicians, Tokyo (27 and 30 October 1999). The patients did not have methemoglobinemia, which wouldhave been consistent with acetonitrile poisoning. The doctors employed the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases. Okumura etal., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 2,” 621; Obu, “Japanese Medical Team Report,” 2-22–24; Matsui, Obu, and

Within a couple of hours, St. Luke’s hospital had filled with 640 unexpected patients.97 Aside fromthe emergency department and the intensive care unit, patients were treated virtually everywhere—in thechapel, the outpatient department, the halls, and wards. Initially, the St. Luke’s staff tried to completestandard medical charts, but soon had to forsake that practice in favor of a continuous sheet recordingpertinent data. They improvised a check-box form that listed the state of exposure (e.g., where, when, how),the patient’s signs and symptoms, treatment, and outcome.98 As patients were fanned throughout the hospital,communications inside the hospital became so jammed that it was not possible to call from one departmentto another. Hospital staff resorted to shouting down the halls or personally hunting down a particularcolleague.99 With virtually all victims complaining of vision problems, the first stop for many was theopthamology department, which saw its first patient at 8:50am. Victims had very pinpointed pupils, a signof organophosphate poisoning.100

The St. Luke’s staff took blood samples from all patients, and the results began to return at 9:40am,as noted in box 3.1. The blood tests showed very low cholinesterase levels, additional evidence that led thedoctors to suspect organophosphate poisoning. About an hour after the first patients arrived, the firedepartment informed St. Luke’s that the source of the problem was acetonitrile, a possibility that clinicalfindings did not support. Moreover, after consulting in-house medical databases and the Japan PoisonInformation Center, the doctors at St. Luke’s suspected sarin. A critical telephone call from a physician whohad attended to the victims of Aum’s sarin attack in Matsumoto and medical specialists from the JapaneseSelf Defense Forces further steered the preliminary diagnosis toward sarin.101 Once the St. Luke’s medical


Yamashina, “Hospital Deployment in Mass Sarin Poisoning Incident of the Tokyo Subway System,” 68. Only one physicianfrom the Chemical School at Omiya was dispatched to Tokyo, sent first to the National Police Hospital at 1:05pm. This doctorsubsequently moved from hospital to hospital in Tokyo, returning to Omiya at 7:00pm. “Report of the Japanese Ground SelfDefense Forces: Chronology of Activities,” Internal Memorandum (Tokyo: Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces, n.d.). Hence,the military doctors who were helping their civilian counterparts were from the regular military medical corps.

102 Ambulatory patients showered themselves. The medical staff gave nonambulatory patients bed baths and changedtheir clothes and linens. Okumura et al., “Report on 640 Victims of the Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack,” 132; Okumura et al., “TheTokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 2,” 620.

103 F. R. Sidell, “Chemical Agent Terrorism,” Annals of Emergency Medicine 28, no. 2 (August 1996): 224.

104 Okumura et al., “Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 1,” 615. Aum Shinrikyo apparently used acetonitrile, which thefire department detected, to help jump-start the evaporation of the sarin. Olson, “Overview: Recent Incident and ResponderImplications,” page 2-40.

105 Until they had confirmation of sarin, they did not want to administer 2-PAM because this drug could have worsenedthe condition of the patients had an agricultural organophosphate been the causative agent. Interview with author: St. Luke’sPhysician, Tokyo (30 October 1999); Okumura et al., “Report on 640 Victims of the Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack,” 132; Obu,“Japanese Medical Team Briefing,”page 2-24.


107 Officials at the Sumitomo Kaguku Corporation in Osaka learned that something horrible had befallen Tokyo’ssubway commuters from live television reports. Convinced there was a strong possibility that sarin was the causative agent, theytook the initiative to send 2-PAM supplies to Tokyo. The Japanese government neither called nor required this company to dothis, but the Sumitomo Kaguku truck may have received a police escort to speed its arrival. Interviews with author: St. Luke’sPhysicians (27, 29 and 30 October 1999). This account contradicts previous reports that the Japanese government had orderedhospitals to stock extra supplies of atropine and 2-PAM. Obu, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,”pages 2-23, 2-26.


staff believed that nerve gas was involved, they started critical patients on a 2-PAM intravenous drip, whichstands for 2-pyridine-aldoxime-methiodide. They also directed that admitted patients shower and changeclothes. Due to lack of space, they did not decontaminate most of the mildly affected victims.102 Elsewherearound Tokyo, some hospitals had also admitted patients in the clothes they were wearing and wereconfronting secondary contamination problems. Some other hospitals required incoming victims to changeclothes before admission.103

Roughly two and a half hours after the first victim had reached their doorstep, the St. Luke’s medicalstaff learned from television broadcasts—not directly through official channels—that police had identifiedthe poisonous substance as sarin.104 With the confirmation of sarin exposure, the St. Luke’s staff began toadminister 2-PAM to severely and moderately ill patients, as appropriate.105 St. Luke’s had 100 ampules of2-PAM and 1,030 ampules of atropine sulfate on hand, enough to begin initial treatment of the more seriouscases.106 Other hospitals did not have 2-PAM in supply, and it was fortunate that the alert managers of theOsaka company that manufactured the drug rushed emergency supplies to Tokyo as the disaster wasunfolding.107 St. Luke’s patients alone were given 700 ampules of 2-PAM and 2,800 ampules of atropine.108


109 Interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo (30 October 1999); Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway SarinAttack: Part 1,” 615.

110 After six hours of observation, patients with vision problems only were discharged, but those with dyspnea, nausea,vomiting, or numbness were kept for additional observation and treatment. Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack:Part 2,” 622; Obu, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,” page 2-22.; Sadayoshi Obu, “Sarin Poisoning in the Tokyo Subway,”briefing slides (Tokyo: St. Luke’s International Hospital, n.d.). Late in the evening, the staff of St. Luke’s was able to reconfirmthe list of admitted patients, a feat that the Tokyo fire department was unable to accomplish cumulatively for hospitals throughoutthe city until 16 hours after the attack. Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 1,” 615. Among the reasons givenfor the ability of the St. Luke’s staff to cope with this huge number of patients were the professionalism of the staff, “the time ofthe day, the fact that a majority of victims were not very old, and a simple, single injury; no trauma, no bleeding.” Obu,“Japanese Medical Team Briefing,”page 2-25.

111 Obu, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,” pages 2-22 and 2-24; Matsui, Obu and Yamashina, “Hospital Deploymentin Mass Sarin Poisoning Incident of the Tokyo Subway system,” 69.

112 Planning Considerations for Health and Medical Services Response to Nuclear/Biological/Chemical Terrorism(Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, November 1996), 2. As cited in Jonathan B. Tucker, “NationalHealth and Medical Services Response to Incidents of Chemical and Biological Terrorism,” Journal of the American MedicalAssociation 278, no. 5 (6 August 1997): 362.

113 Interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo (29 October 1999). No official figures have been released on thenumber of police injured during the disaster response, but a Japanese official estimated the number to be roughly one hundred,with no serious injuries. Interview with author: Government Official, Japanese Government, Tokyo (27 October 1999).

As the morning progressed, several hospitals called St. Luke’s to offer help, asking if they could takesome of St. Luke’s patients to provide some relief. However, there was no disaster plan or means for inter-hospital transport of patients, and the fire department said their ambulances were unavailable. St. Luke’shad no choice but to handle the swell of patients for several hours on its own.109 By mid-afternoon, themildly affected victims had recovered their eyesight, and St. Luke’s released over 525 from the hospital. Atotal of 111 patients were admitted for continuing observation and treatment, including twenty-two whoremained overnight in the chapel.110 Late in the afternoon of March 21st, eighty of St. Luke’s remaining 111patients were well enough to go home. Within a week, St. Luke’s discharged all of its patients from thedisaster, except for one who suffered severe anoxic brain damage.111

REPERCUSSIONS FOR TOKYO’S EMERGENCY RESCUERS ANDHOSPITAL STAFFS

Field rescuers and hospital staffs who attended to the ailing subway commuters also felt theaftereffects of the sarin attack. Among firefighters and police, secondary contamination was not as extensiveas one might have expected, since the first rescuers on the scene, when the agent concentration was highest,were not wearing special protective clothing. Of the 1,364 firefighters who rushed to the various subwaystations, 135 reportedly were injured while attending to victims.112 This number equates to roughly 10percent of the firefighters, but the injuries were not of a serious nature. At St. Luke’s, the medical staff sawa few symptomatic police and a group of about twenty firefighters, who exhibited only mild effects (e.g., eyeproblems, headache) and were therefore released in the afternoon.113 Similarly, a total of 135 Tokyo EMTs,


114 Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 1,” 614–5.

115 Of the ninety-six Matsumoto rescuers, eight individuals, or 7.6 percent, reported symptoms. Only one, a 45-year-old fireman complaining of headache and nausea, was admitted to the hospital. He was discharged the next afternoon. Sevenother Matsumoto rescuers experienced symptoms (e.g., vision problems, nausea, headache), but did not seek medical care.Yanagisawa, “Matsumoto, Japan (June 1994),” 2-17–18; Okudera et al., “Unexpected Nerve Gas Exposure in the City ofMatsumoto,” 528.

116 Of the 474 staffers responding to the questionnaire, 66 (14 percent) reported eye symptoms, 52 (11 percent)headaches, 39 (8.3 percent) throat pain, 25 (5.3 percent) dyspnea, 14 (3 percent) nausea, 12 (2.5 percent) dizziness, and 9 (1.9percent) nose pain. St. Luke’s sent the questionnaire to 1,063 hospital doctors, nurses, nurse assistants, volunteers, and clerksand 44 percent responded. Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 2,” 620–1; Obu et al., “Sarin Poisoning onTokyo Subway.” On the minor secondary exposure effects, see also, Obu, “Medical Team Briefing,” page 2-24. A key indicationof the mild nature of the secondary exposure problem was that not a single health care employee who treated patients requiredantidote. Interview with author: Medical Toxicologist/Poison Control Center Director (13 June 2000).

117 Like their Tokyo counterparts, the staffs at the six hospitals in Matsumoto who treated over fifty victims after theJune 1994 attack did not have the advantage of protective clothing or respirators. Several hospital personnel and nursesexperienced nausea and fatigue and one doctor had myosis. All recovered within a week. Okudera et al., “Unexpected NerveGas Exposure in the City of Matsumoto,” 528. Concluded one doctor about the effects on the staff at Matsumoto’s ShinshuUniversity Hospital, where several nurses experienced dim vision and myosis was confirmed in a few, “the medical staff was notaffected by secondary contamination.” Yanagisawa, “Matsumoto, Japan (June 1994),” page 2-20.

or about 10 percent of those who responded on March 20th, showed exposure symptoms and required medicaltreatment. The majority of these EMTs became symptomatic while transporting patients, probably becauseof off-gassing from the victims in the poorly ventilated ambulances. Authorities ordered the windows ofambulances opened which alleviated the problem.114 The secondary exposure problem in Tokyo was not toograve because no rescuers required antidote treatment. Although the on-scene rescuers after Aum’s June1994 attack in Matsumoto were similarly vulnerable, just over 7 percent of the first responders there becamesymptomatic, and only one of the affected rescuers sought medical assistance.115

Secondary exposure problems also occurred at St. Luke’s, particularly in areas of the hospital whereair circulation was poor. Of more than 1,060 on-duty staffers surveyed, 110 staff members, all women,described experiencing secondary exposure symptoms. Almost one-half of the personnel working in thepoorly ventilated chapel reported symptoms, as opposed to only 16.7 percent of those working in theemergency department, where the wide-open doors helped to circulate air. Only one nurse, who worked theentire day in the chapel, was admitted after exhibiting multiple exposure symptoms. The most frequentcomplaint of other hospital staffers involved vision problems, but no other St. Luke’s staff required medicalcare.116 Analogous to the situation at St. Luke’s, the staffs at the hospitals in Matsumoto who cared for thevictims of Aum’s sarin attack there had minimal secondary exposure problems.117


118 Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 2,” 619; Sidell, “US Medical Team Briefing,” page 2-32. Inthe June 1994 Matsumoto incident, seven died. Okudera et al., “Unexpected Nerve Gas Exposure in the City of Matsumoto,”528.


120 Soldiers from the decontamination units arrived at Hibiya subway station at 4:50pm and began working five minuteslater. Most members of this unit left for Tsukiji station, where they engaged in decontamination operations between 5:20 and6:21pm. A second decontamination unit from Omiya arrived at Korakuen station and conducted decontamination operationsbetween 7:40 and 8:40pm. Both decontamination units met at Kasumigaseki station, which they decontaminated between 9:30and 9:40pm. Another decontamination team worked at Kodenmacho station between 11:25pm and 1:22am. The twodecontamination teams returned to base, respectively at 10:30pm and 2:05am. Working in conjunction with these teams werefour chemical detection specialists, the first of whom arrived at Kasumigaseki station at 3:07pm. The other three were dispatchedto Hibiya, Kodenmacho, and Tsukiji stations. A two-person sample collection team from Omiya collected samples atKodenmacho station just before 1:00pm. These samples were sent under police custody to the laboratory at Omiya. “Report ofthe Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces: Chronology of Activities,” Internal Memorandum (Tokyo: Japanese Ground SelfDefense Forces, n.d.). In all, roughly sixty troops were dispatched to decontaminate the affected areas. Interviews with author:Major, Japanese Self Defense Force, and Civilian Official, Japanese Self Defense Agency, Tokyo (28 October 1999).

121 On sodium hydroxide as the decontamination fluid, Tu, “Basic Information on Nerve Gas,” 315–6. The speed ofthe clean-up operation drew criticism from some experts, who thought that the decontamination solution was removed fromsurfaces before it could take effect. Such solutions should be left on surfaces for at least fifteen to twenty minutes. Sidell, “USMedical Team Briefing,” page 2-35.

THE WAKE OF THE MARCH 20TH ATTACK

The death toll on March 20th was eight, and it eventually rose to twelve.118 The aftereffects of Aum’sattack were felt by far more than those who were unfortunate enough to be on the subway during the morningrush hour. Prior to this event, Japan had enjoyed a reputation for being one of the safest, least violentcountries in the world, a fact in which its citizens rightfully took pride. Aum’s attack shook the entire nationin a way that no earthquake ever had.

The maze of rescuers, reporters, regular business traffic, and curiosity seekers paralyzed the citycenter for hours after Aum’s attack. Underground, the three major lines of the subway system, plus overtwenty-six subway stations, were closed.119 Health, safety, and transit authorities in Tokyo moved promptlyto restore public confidence in the city’s safety. Troops from the Self Defense Force Chemical School inOmiya received orders at 10:10am to help decontaminate the affected subway trains and stations. These unitsbegan arriving on scene at 4:50pm and worked in five subway stations, continuing their operations well pastmidnight.120 Wearing gas masks and other protective clothing, they swabbed various surfaces with a 5percent sodium hydroxide solution.121 Clean-up operations were accomplished rapidly, and by late in theevening transit authorities had most of the subway system back in normal service. With assurances frompublic officials that the system was clean and safe, commuters took to the subway again in the days that


122 Interviews with author: Major, Japanese Self Defense Force, and Civilian Official, Japanese Self Defense Agency,Tokyo (28 October 1999). Brackett, Holy Terror, 142.

123 Interview with author: Lt. Col., Japanese Self Defense Forces, Ground Staff Office, Tokyo (28 October 1999).

124 Brackett, Holy Terror, 144–8; Sayle, “Nerve Gas and the Four Noble Truths,” 70. Right after the attack, cultmembers also scrambled to hide evidence of wrongdoing. Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World, 256–7. On thefeverish search of Tokyo police for canaries given their shortage of chemical detectors, Tu, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical andBiological Weapons,” 66. See also, T. R. Reid, “Japan Gathers Evidence on Sect,” Washington Post, 23 March 1995; NicholasD. Kristoff, “Terror in Tokyo: Japan Police Raid the Offices of a Sect Linked to Poison Gas,” New York Times, 22 March 1995.

125 Asahara blamed the United States for dispersing this agent over the compound, as well as sarin and yperite, a WorldWar I-era blister agent. Translated excerpt of this videotape, which was sent on 24 March 1995, was provided by Mr. MasaakiSugishima (1 September 2000).

126 Yamaguchi, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,” page 2-28. St. Luke’s saw an additional 365 patients from the 21st

to the 28th. Matsui, Obu, and Yamashina, “Hospital Deployment in Mass Sarin Poisoning Incident of the Tokyo SubwaySystem,” 69.

127 Obu, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,” page 2-24; Yamaguchi, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,” page 2-29.

128 Yamaguchi, “Japanese Medical Team Briefing,” page 2-29; Interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo (27October 1999). St. Luke’s hospital surveyed the 640 patients that it admitted, and the majority of those responding reportedexperiencing some type of post-traumatic stress disorder one, three, and six months after the attack. Eighty percent returned thequestionnaire, and almost 60 percent of the respondents said they also experienced sleep disturbance, flashbacks, depression,shock, nightmares, and irritability. Obu et al., “Sarin Poisoning on Tokyo Subway,” 591. Because the number of patients was sogreat, the hospitals could not afford on their own to do the proper follow-up tracking on the victims, and the Japanesegovernment did not require or offer fiscal aid to conduct follow up surveys. Interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo

followed, although ridership was lower than normal.122 As a precaution against additional foul play, thesubway company asked commuters not to leave packages onboard trains or in stations and decided to removeall of the litter containers within the subway system. Years passed before the Tokyo subway systemreinstalled the trashcans.123

On March 22nd, law enforcement authorities at last took action against Aum Shinrikyo. At dawn,2,500 police and soldiers in partial or full protective gear, some carrying caged canaries, executed raids onthe Kamikuishiki compound and two dozen other Aum sites. Cult members were arrested by the score, butAsahara and many of his most senior aides had gone into hiding. In a taped radio broadcast, the guru urgedhis followers to “meet death without regrets” and persevere with the cult’s plan for “salvation.”124 After theattack, Asahara also sent a videotaped message to the Japanese media claiming that he and 1,700 of hisfollowers were ill from Q fever.125

For the next week, dozens of unsettled Tokyo citizens continued to stream into hospitals complainingof various symptoms, particularly myosis.126 One month after the attack, small numbers of patients wereseeking treatment for psychological symptoms or post-traumatic stress disorder.127 Victims of the attackrandomly surveyed three months afterwards complained of various eye symptoms. Others experienced panicattacks months later, with many afraid to ride the subways.128


(29 October 1999). A survey by Japan’s National Police Association, released in January 1999, stated that 57 percent of 1,247people who had witnessed the attack “complained that memories of the accident would return suddenly, or they felt frightenedwhenever they rode a train.” “Sarin Attack Victims Seek Healthcare Costs,” Yomiuri Shinbun, 20 March 1999.

129 Staff Statement, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 62, 68–9; Olson, “Overview: RecentIncident and Responder Implications,” page 2-39; Brackett, Holy Terror, 154–7; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End ofthe World, 271, 279–80. On the motive for the attempted hydrogen cyanide attacks, personal communication from Dr. AnthonyTu (6 October 2000).

130 T. R. Reid, “Leader of Japanese Cult Arrested in Subway Attack,” Washington Post, 16 May 1995; Nicholas D.Kristoff, “Japanese Arrest Cult Leader Blamed in Poison Gas Attacks,” New York Times, 16 May 1995. Asahara’s hiding placemeasured a coffin-like three feet high by ten feet long. When found, he is said to have ordered police not to touch him because itis considered disrespectful to touch a guru. Brackett, Holy Terror, 159–60; Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of theWorld, 281.

131 Kaplan, “Aum Shinrikyo (1995),” 289, 305–6; Olson, “Aum Shinrikyo: Once and Future Threat?” 513–6.

132 Personal communication from Mr. Maasaki Sugishima (4 September 2000).

A series of incidents in the train stations of Tokyo and Yokohama in May and June 1995 exacerbatedthe efforts of Tokyo officials to restore a sense of normalcy. Thrice, chemical devices containing powderedsodium cyanide and diluted sulfuric acid were placed in Tokyo train stations. When mixed, these twochemicals create hydrogen cyanide, and the device found in the Shinjuku station on May 5th 1995 containeda sufficient amount to kill thousands of commuters. Watchful subway attendants foiled each of these attacks,apparently attempted by Aum members to retaliate against the Japanese police. By comparison, the twocopycat acts in Yokohama were innocuous, involving tear gas, an incapacitating, but not lethal chemicalagent.129

Throughout the summer of 1995, Japanese police continued to round up Asahara’s faithful,eventually arresting over two hundred key members. The guru Asahara was finally located on May 16th 1995and taken into custody from his tiny hiding place in the Satyan 6 building at the Kamikuishiki compound.130

A core group of seven hundred entranced followers remained unfazed by these events. Fealty andrecruitment continued unabated. In 1997, the cult more than doubled its branches in Japan, attracting roughly2,700 followers. Aum hosted “educational” seminars at a brisk 50-per-month clip, and as before, newmembers tithed to the organization. Moreover, Aum’s computer and other businesses did well, despite thelingering negative publicity of the trials of Asahara and other cult members. In 1999, the cult’s estimatednet worth was over $20 million.131

By mid-2000, the Japanese court system had prosecuted numerous cult figures. None of the chargesbrought against those on trial pertained to the cult’s biological weapons program. Instead, they were triedfor various conventional crimes (e.g., kidnapping, murder) and the acts associated with the subway attack.132

Seven cult members received death sentences and several others received lengthy jail terms, as shown intable 3.1. Other trials were underway in mid-September 2000, including those of Asahara and Endo. Somemembers of the cult made public apologies, and in January 2000 Aum Shinrikyo changed its name to Aleph,


133 “Cult in Gas Attack Apologizes, but Japanese are Skeptical,” New York Times, 2 December 1999; “Japan DoomsdayCult Reorganizing,” Associated Press, 18 January 2000. Immediately following Aum’s name change, some Japanese businesses,schools and organizations that used the word “Aleph” in their titles also switched names after being bombarded with calls fromcustomers and students concerned about connections with the cult. Calvin Sims, “Japan Sect’s Name Change Brings Confusionand Fear,” New York Times, 24 January 2000.

134 Kaplan, “Aum Shinrikyo (1995),” 307. Also, on 22 April 2000, a notebook containing a sarin “recipe” was seizedfrom a car in which Miwa Matsumoto, Asahara’s daughter, was a passenger. Cult representatives claimed that the notebook,belonging to a sect member with a degree in chemistry, was being delivered to a lawyer for use in the defense of one of the Aummembers on trial. Mari Yamaguchi, “Police Seize Cult’s Newly Written Nerve Gas Recipe,” Associated Press, 26 May 2000;“Aum Still Pursuing Sarin Studies,” Mainichi Shinbun, 26 May 2000.

135 The law, widely acknowledged as having been written with Aum Shinrikyo in mind, gives police broad powers tosurvey and search, without a search warrant, any organization that has committed "indiscriminate mass murder during the last 10years.” Howard W. French, “Figure in Japanese Cult Freed from Jail, and Mobbed by Press,” New York Times, 30 December1999. Using this act’s broad powers, police searched several Aum facilities in five prefectures in February 2000. Although thelaw did not allow police to seize any materials during these searches, they were empowered to require Aum to report detailsabout its facilities, the extent of cult assets, the cult’s membership and Internet activities. “New Powers Used to Search AumSites,” Mainichi Shinbun, 5 February 2000.

136 Kaplan, “Aum Shinrikyo (1995),” 286. Note that the Monterey database, discussed in chapter 2, lists nineteen AumShinrikyo attacks, several of which were targeted at the cult’s enemies or deserters.

the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.133 Five years after the attack, law enforcement authorities apparentlyhad not seized all of the toxic chemicals that were in Aum’s possession, and in March 1998 a member ofAum made a sarin threat against the Moscow subway.134 Lingering concerns that the cult could resume itsharmful activities were in large part responsible for a 1999 law enabling Japanese police to investigatesuspicious activities more aggressively.135

FIVE YEARS AFTER TOKYO: RETHINKING THE LESSONS

According to official reports, Aum Shinrikyo perpetrated at least ten chemical and nine biologicalattacks on their Japanese countrymen between 1990 and 1995.136 By almost any standard, Aum Shinrikyowas a terrorist nightmare—a cult flush with money and technical skills led by a con-man guru with anapocalyptic vision, an obsession with chemical and biological weaponry, and no qualms about killing. Thiscombustible combination left scars on Japan and by proxy on the rest of the world. Aum Shinrikyo, it is fairto say, changed the way the world thinks about terrorism. Now that more is known about the cult’s weaponsprograms and the subsequent rescue operations, it is important to see if the appropriate lessons were takenfrom Tokyo.

The first lesson that many took from Tokyo was that it presaged a new age of terrorism whereinchemical and biological weapons would be an integral part of the terrorist arsenal. Five years, several majorterrorist truck bombings, and numerous other conventional terrorist attacks later, this lesson should bereconsidered from the perspective of terrorists, who will study Aum’s attacks with three things in mind.According to one definition of a successful terrorist attack, Aum’s subway sarin assault was a resounding


137 Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1998), 131; Brackett, Holy Terror, 6; Jenkins,“Understanding the Link,” 50.

success. That definition revolves around the amount of publicity that a terrorist operation gains.137 Few

Table 3.1: Aum Shinrikyo’s Crimes and Punishments*

Cult Member Crime(s) Prosecuted Sentence

Dr. Ikuo Hayashi, chief cultphysician

Attacker, 20 March 1995 subwaysarin attack

Life imprisonment

Akira Yamagata Murder using VX 20 years in prison

Kozo Fujinagawa Builder of Satyan 7 and of a sarinaerosolization device

10 years in prison

Yoshihiro Inoue, Aum’s chief ofintelligence

Planning of murders and attacks Life in prison

Kitoaki Okazaki Kidnapping, murder of threemembers of Sakamoto family andof Shuzo Taguchi, a cult member

Death sentence

Kiyohide Hayakawa Kidnapping, murder of threemembers of Sakamoto family andof Shuzo Taguchi, a cult member

Death sentence

Satoru Hashimoto Attacker, 27 June 1994 sarin attackin Matsumoto; kidnapping, murder

of three members of Sakamotofamily

Death sentence

Masato Yokoyama Attacker, 20 March 1995 subwaysarin attack

Death sentence

Yasuo Hayashi Attacker, 20 March 1995 subwaysarin attack

Death sentence

Toru Toyoda Attacker, 20 March 1995 subwaysarin attack

Death sentence

Kenichi Hirose Attacker, 20 March 1995 subwaysarin attack

Death sentence

Shigeo Sugimoto Driver, 20 March 1995 subwaysarin attack

Life imprisonment

* Note that the trials of Shoko Asahara and Seichi Endo were still underway in mid-October 2000. Sources: Hiroshi Matsubara, “Aum Rulings Set Line between Life and Death,” Japan Times, 11 August2000; Anthony T. Tu, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical and Biological Weapons,” Archives of Toxicology,Kinetics and Xenobiotic Metabolism 7, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 79–80.


138 Raymond A. Zilinskas, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Chemical/Biological Terrorism as a Paradigm?” Politics and the LifeSciences 15, no. 2 (September 1996): 238; Jenkins, “Understanding the Link,” 48–9.

would quibble that the cult’s attack was one of the most publicized terrorist incidents in history.

Another factor that terrorists will consider is whether Aum’s use of chemical and biological weaponshelped to achieve the cult’s goals. Operationally, Aum’s objective on March 20th has been identified askilling as many police as possible and thereby forestalling, if not cancel, a police raid on their compounds.In a larger context, the objective was to incite such social upheaval that the mad guru’s prophesies about thecoming apocalypse would materialize, leading to the collapse of the Japanese government. If anything, thesubway attack backfired, increasing the determination of the Japanese police to move on the cult. The raidwas delayed only by forty-eight hours. As for the larger goals, the Japanese government remains intact, theJapanese islands are still afloat, and most of the cult’s hierarchy is imprisoned, some under death sentences.The cult itself persists, but is a shadow of its former self. In this light, Aum’s venture into biological andchemical warfare can hardly be viewed as contributing to the cult’s operational or overall objectives.Accordingly, several analysts argue that terrorists will see Aum’s sarin attacks less as a beacon than as awarning not to follow suit. Terrorists, they posit, will shun chemical and biological weapons in favor of theirfamiliar, less complicated trade tools—guns and bombs.138

A third factor that terrorists will consider, which interrelates to another lesson that many took fromTokyo, is how “easy” chemical and biological weapons are to acquire and use. The lesson that has frequentlybeen derived from the Aum experience is that germ and poison weapons are well within the grasp ofterrorists, particularly since most of the requisite components of a weapons program are available in thescientific literature or the commercial marketplace. All that terrorists needed, according to this logic, wasa couple of scientists to assemble these components.

One of the hallmarks of Aum Shinrikyo was the unusual emphasis that the cult placed on recruitingscientists and technicians for its weapons programs. Aum’s weapons teams had ample resources and yearsin which to unravel the intricacies of making and disseminating chemical and biological weapons. Yet, fromobtaining virulent seed cultures to spreading germs, Aum’s bio program a total bust. The cult’s chemicalweapons program was certainly more mature, but it was also something of a risky business, involvingnumerous toxic leaks and accidents as well as dissemination attempts that jeopardized the lives of cultmembers. Thus, terrorists might look at the Aum experience and see successfully acquiring and using theseweapons as a hard rather than an easy proposition.

Some have said that Aum’s weapons programs did not reach full potency because its scientists werenot as good in practice as they were on paper, and the isolated and distorted environment of the cult was not


139 Falkenrath, Newman, and Thayer, America’s Achilles’ Heel, 22–4.

140 Jonathan B. Tucker, “Measures to Fight Chemical/Biological Terrorism: How Little is Enough?” Politics and theLife Sciences 15, no. 2 (September 1996): 244.

141 In an October 1995 publication, “Improving the Security of Russia’s Chemical Weapons Stockpile,” the author alsocited the figure of “over 5,000” from press accounts in the New York Times and the Washington Post. She has lost track of thetimes she has encountered the figure since, and it is only through interviews and the medical literature that she has come toappreciate these important distinctions.

conducive to good decision making.139 The size of Aum Shinrikyo’s scientific corps was already anaberration for the terrorist world, and many of its scientists had enviable, if not ideal, credentials. If hackscientists were Aum’s problem, then this analysis begs the question of whether cults and terrorist groups evercould recruit the top-flight scientific talent needed for a full-scale weapons program. One analyst haspointed out that it may be difficult for other terrorist groups or cults to repeat Aum’s feat of recruiting somany university-trained scientists because such groups operate in a manner that is antithetical to the free-thinking academic setting to which scientists are accustomed and in which they thrive.140 Statements thatone or a couple of graduate-level scientists could conquer the technical complexities of inflicting masscasualties with chemical and biowarfare agents are plentiful, but they seem to fly in the face not just ofAum’s experience, but of the considerable human resources that governments have had to muster for viableweapons programs.

Other lessons from Tokyo pertain to the accuracy of reporting and the power of numbers. Theindelible image of that horrible day is of subway exits littered with prone commuters, their noses bloodied,gasping for air. The injury toll for March 20th is still most often given as “over 5,500.”141 The power of thatnumber and the fearsome reputation of chemical weapons has combined to make Aum’s subway attack seemmore damaging than it was. On its true scale, the attack was bad enough—fifty-four critically and severelyinjured. Over 980 others suffered mild exposure symptoms, such as eye problems and headache, but theremainder of the 5,500 were worried well. The human consequences of the Tokyo subway attack should notbe diminished, but nor should the direct effects of the attack be blown out of proportion: The number 5,500is a one hundred-fold amplification of the serious and critical injuries. The death toll from thatday—twelve—is a fraction of the dead from bombings of the US Marine barracks in Lebanon (241), PanAm flight 103 (260), the federal building in Oklahoma City (168), and the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenyaand Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (257).

Although it may not seem that way at first glance, some things were working in favor of commuterswho happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time on March 20th 1995. From analysis of agent, it isknown that the sect used a low-grade sarin during the Tokyo attack. The low concentration of the sarin hasbeen attributed to both orders from Murai to weaken the agent strength after the Matsumoto attack and to


142 The concentration of agent in the samples averaged 25 percent pure sarin. Perhaps the most authoritative source onthe methods that the cult may have used to synthesize the sarin is a US chemist that aided Japanese police in their sampleanalysis. Tu, “Basic Information on Nerve Gas,” 311–2; Tu, “Chemistry and Toxicology of Nerve Gas Incidents in Japan in 1994and 1995,” 89–92. Others disagree about what formula Aum employed to produce sarin but concur that the Tokyo attack wasexecuted with a weak sarin. Aum may have used a manufacturing process of 1950s vintage, the German salt process. Accordingto one analyst, the sarin was apparently not distilled, so concentrations averaged 25 percent but ranged from 10 to 40 percent.Olson, “Overview: Recent Incident and Responder Implications,” page 2-40. According to Kaplan and Marshall, Aum used aRussian manufacturing technique. The Cult at the End of the World, 108. On orders to weaken the sarin and the last-minutemanufacture, Brackett, Holy Terror, 39, 117–8, 125.

143 Among those with direct contact with the agent were subway station attendants who tried to remove the bags ofsarin and clean up the liquid agent. Casualties were also highest at the stations that were most poorly ventilated. Brackett, HolyTerror, 138–41; Olson, “Overview: Recent Incident and Responder Implications,” page 2-41. Note that decontamination wouldhave been much more critical to the safety of the responders and the survival of the victims if they had been exposed to liquidagent. Sidell, “US Medical Team Briefing,” page 2-34.

144 Interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo (29 October 1999). Obu et al. “Sarin Poisoning on TokyoSubway,” 592.

145 The injury statistics are discussed on page 95. One chemical weapons expert concluded that “cross-contaminationof medical personnel was minimal or nonexistent.” Sidell, “ Chemical Agent Terrorism,” 224. On the mild secondarycontamination problems because of diluted agent, interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo (29 October 1999). Onsecondary exposure because of lack of protective gear and decontamination of victims, Okumura et al., “The Tokyo SubwaySarin Attack: Part 1,” 614–5.

its last-minute manufacture.142 The effectiveness of the attack was certainly not aided by the decidedly low-tech method of delivery—umbrella-poking of plastic bags filled with sarin. Most commuters scatteredthrough the resulting vapor hazard to the station exits, where fresh air diluted the mist even more.Comparatively few people received a lethal dose under these conditions. Those who died apparently haddirect contact with liquid agent, and those who were most seriously injured were standing or sitting right nextto the packages from which the toxic fog originated.143 Consequently, the vast majority of the victims weremildly affected.144

A second category of inflated statistics has arisen concerning the number and severity of injuriesamong the rescuers and hospital personnel. To hear some tell it, virtually all of the police, firefighters, andambulance crews became victims themselves, and the hospitals staffs were decimated by the effects of off-gassing. The lesson that was extrapolated from this version of events is that maximum protective gear andtotal decontamination should be the iron-clad rules of responding to an unconventional terrorist attack, lestrescuers and health care providers be seriously injured themselves. In field jargon, this viewpoint isarticulated as “level A all the way,” referring to the highest level of protective gear available.

The actual statistics of secondary contamination among Tokyo rescuers and hospital care providerstell a somewhat different story. Rescuers converged on the scene with no protective gear, and they did notdecontaminate victims. Yet, an average of 90 percent of the firefighters, police, EMTs, and health careproviders were unscathed.145 The large majority of the 10 percent with secondary exposure problems hadmild symptoms (e.g., eye problems, headache) and continued to perform their duties. One staffer at St.


146 The authors do not stipulate a level of protection for field medical personnel, but do specify respiratory protection,chemical resistant suits, gloves, and boots, which could be consistent with level C, B, or A gear. Given the tenor of the article,the authors did not intend to recommend level A protective gear for EMTs. Okumura et al., “Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part1,” 617; Okumura et al., “Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 2,” 622–3. On levels of personal protective clothing, see ChrisHawley, Hazardous Materials Response & Operations (Albany, NY: Delmar, Thomson Learning, 2000), 108–11. Also, RobertD. Cox, “Decontamination and Management of Hazardous Materials Exposure Victims in the Emergency Department,” Annalsof Emergency Medicine 23, no. 4 (April 1994): 761–70.

147 Commenting on the lessons of Tokyo for protective gear, a veteran first responder said that a mandatory Level Aprotective gear rule is not the answer and that on certain occasions firefighting bunker gear with splash and respirator protectionwould suffice. Interview with author: Police Lieutenant (23 March 1999). This viewpoint has since received Pentagon approval,as noted in chapters 5 and 6. On the matter of decontamination, Tokyo’s lesson was: “This business of decontamination. . .sometimes is overdone.” Sidell, “US Medical Team Briefing,” page 2-34.

148 Note that the various units of the Omiya Chemical School, which is located on the outskirts of Tokyo, were unableto reach the scene for roughly five hours.

Luke’s, which by far received the most patients and therefore arguably faced the most serious secondarycontamination risk, required hospitalization. Therefore, those who attended the injured that day in the fieldand at the hospital of course advocate protective gear for EMTs and hospital workers, but rather than themaximum protective gear, they recommend that level C or better suits and respiratory protection be stipulatedfor hospital workers.146 The latter approach is much more workable in the hospital setting.

Had Aum Shinrikyo used military-grade sarin and a more effective dissemination method, the injuryto commuters, rescue teams, and hospital personnel undoubtedly would have been much higher. However,the worst-case scenario is not always what unfolds. Given the technical production and dispersal difficultiesthat Aum, with all of its resources and scientific skill, could not overcome, the cult’s experience could leadone to question the feasibility of terrorists achieving the worst-case scenarios that apply to the use ofchemical and biological weapons by well-trained military forces. Therefore, one response lesson from Tokyois that rescuers and health care providers should evaluate each crisis on its own merits, thereafter takingprotective and decontamination precautions appropriate to the circumstances.147

Other lessons can be learned from the post-attack response. Tokyo emergency crews cleared criticaland serious patients from the incident scene to the hospitals within a couple of hours. What brought theTokyo hospital system under such pressure was not the truly injured, which hospitals proved more thancapable of handling, but the monsoon of psychogenic patients. The first lesson here relates to the importanceof getting clear and concise information to those at the scene as well as throughout a stricken city to reducethe anxiety that might cause otherwise healthy people to go to hospitals. The other lesson is that rescueteams that are not local will be of practically no lifesaving utility unless they are pre-deployed.148 As thesaying goes, all emergencies are local.

Another aspect of the Tokyo response has to do with human nature: In a crisis, everyone wants tobe a hero. Independent of any request from professional rescuers, personnel from federal ministries inserted


149 Interviews with author: Japanese Official, Tokyo (27 October 1999); Major, Japanese Self Defense Forces, Tokyo(28 October 1999); St. Luke’s Physicians, Tokyo (29 October 1999); Physician, Ministry of Health Official, JapaneseGovernment, Tokyo (1 November 1999).

150 Interviews with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo (29 October 1999); Physician, Ministry of Health Official,Japanese Government, Tokyo (1 November 1999). Okumura et al., “Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 1,” 616–7.


themselves into rescue operations at the incident scene and within the health care system. Many of theseofficials had little or no experience in disaster response, but nonetheless insisted on throwing around theirweight. Emergency response professionals, who had asked for help from the Self Defense Forces’ ChemicalSchool, did not know these other newcomers. These circumstances created command and control confusion,making the Tokyo response more complicated, less coordinated, and less effective.149 To avoid adding tothe tumult of the disaster scene, the response should be directed by experienced professionals who attend tolocal emergencies on a daily basis, know local circumstances and capabilities, and can maintain clear linesof command and control. The lesson that resonates from this experience is that other organizations and assetsshould participate only at the request on the on-scene command authority and the receiving hospitals.

Contributing in no small part to difficulties with command and control was an inability tocommunicate. A seemingly mundane matter that many take for granted in the age of cell phones and theInternet, clear communications are essential to the effectiveness of any disaster response. Within respondingagencies and hospitals, between on-scene responders and hospitals, and all around Tokyo, communicationswere a mess. Regular response frequencies were overwhelmed, as were telephone lines.150 Rescuers andhealth care providers received critical information through the media, not through official channels. Sincefew reporters are trained in the technical intricacies of chemical and biological substances, the media canoverlook and distort important information. Getting accurate and timely information to first responders andhealth care providers is crucial to their personal safety and to their ability to provide appropriate care forvictims. Therefore, a priority Tokyo lesson to be learned concerns the need for real-time, multi-directionalcommunications capabilities that connect field agencies with hospitals, the public health department, andlaboratories.151 This lesson, if learned, could pay off significantly in the local response to any type ofdisaster.

Another aspect of communications has less to do with the radios, cell phones, facsimiles, and theInternet than with the individuals that these tools connect. A terrorist attack with chemical agents was sonovel that the specialists that rescuers and hospitals needed to consult right away were not hooked intoJapan’s emergency response system. The lesson that Tokyo officials and physicians took away from thisexperience was the importance of pre-planning and the need to identify and link beforehand the range ofexperts that certain situations might demand. For chemical emergencies, for example, the expertise of


152 Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 1,” 617. In the aftermath of Aum’s subway attack, theJapanese government has created a roster of experts. Interviews with author: Physician, Japanese Ministry of Health, Tokyo (1November 1999); Federal Government Official, Japanese Government, Tokyo (27 October 1999).

153 Okumura et al., “The Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack: Part 1,” 617; Sidell, “US Medical Team Briefing,” page 2-24.

154 Interview with author: St. Luke’s Physician, Tokyo (29 October 1999). One US city surveyed its hospitals prior to amajor international gathering and found enough atropine between them to treat sixty people. Interview with author:Physician/Associate Director, Hospital Department of Emergency Medicine (9 March 1999).

155 Falkenrath, Newman, and Thayer, America’s Achilles’ Heel, 22. US intelligence officials testified that they had noreason to be concerned about Aum prior to 20 March 1995, despite the cult’s public chatter about poison gas and its threats andaccusations against the United States. US Congress, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee onInvestigations, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 31 October and 1 November 1995 (Washington, DC: USGovernment Printing Office, 1996), 273–4.

156 The Japanese Diet passed a law banning super-toxic, warfare chemicals in April 1995. Brackett, Holy Terror, 52,155, 176, 178–9.

toxicologists and warfare agent specialists from poison control centers and the Omiya Chemical Schoolneeded to be fused into a crisis response at the earliest possible moment, even if not in person.152

With regard to another preparatory activity that can be undertaken to smooth the way for an effectiveresponse, the subway attack clearly caught Tokyo’s EMTs and hospital personnel off-guard. The majorityof the medical professionals were unfamiliar with chemical casualty care and could have benefitted greatlynot only from prior instruction, but from medical treatment protocols to guide their actions. With chemicalcasualties, lifesaving intervention must occur within moments of exposure to increase chances of survival,so the ready availability of the appropriate antidotes was also underscored.153 Many hospitals in Japan andin America do not stock these drugs at all or in sufficient quantities to attend to a few, much less a mass of,casualties.154

One of the oft-cited lessons of Tokyo is that Japanese intelligence and law enforcement authoritieswere inattentive or not properly trained to pick up signs of the menace in their midst. The incident has alsobeen listed as a US intelligence failure.155 Certainly, if intelligence and law enforcement agencies had beenwatching close enough, they would have detected signs of something amiss, for Asahara’s crew publiclyspoke of chemical agents and it was certainly possible to connect the dots between the cult’s fascination withpoison gas, increasingly nefarious acts, and the Matsumoto dress rehearsal. Police in different areas of Japansuspected the cult in several crimes and had concrete evidence of the sect’s production of sarin four monthsprior to the March 20th attack, but did not share information with each other. Moreover, Japanese lawimpeded aggressive investigation and a crackdown on the cult. Religious organizations in Japan wereshielded from undue government interference, and no laws were on the books banning the production orpossession of chemical or biological agents.156


Long before Aum Shinrikyo came along, intelligence and law enforcement authorities should havebeen on alert for signs of terrorist interest in chemical and biological substances, but another lesson mightbe in the offing from this total lapse on the part of intelligence and law enforcement authorities.Governments worldwide need to closely re-examine national laws regulating the domestic possession,production, and transfer of toxic substances and biological agents. To preempt and punish any waywardgroups or individuals that attempt to procure and disperse such materials, police need the proper legalframework to enable investigation, arrest, and prosecution.

chapter 3 rethinking the lessons of tokyo jenkins notes that after other high profile incidents...

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